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Thread: Sad Day

  1. #21

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    RV 8505, if you were at Oshkosh this year you may have noticed the CAF B-29 FIFI flying overhead multiple days, Do you think a B-29 and its most notable mission fits into the category of warbirds? And do you think the B-29 is in the experimental exhibition category?
    Do you think, period? Or just object to topics by others that involve thinking?

    You are not alone, in wanting to cut off discussion on many topics. Kind of like the govt Japan was ruled under back then.
    Last edited by Bill Greenwood; 08-09-2012 at 07:53 AM.

  2. #22
    EAA Staff / Moderator Hal Bryan's Avatar
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    Guys, please - this thread has generated 20 replies about what is arguably one of the most controversial historical topics in the 20th century, and it's been doing fine until now. Debate the war, debate Truman's thinking, debate the presence of a B-29 at Oshkosh, debate the very existence of this thread - but NO PERSONAL ATTACKS.

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  3. #23
    rwanttaja's Avatar
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    One must remember that the atomic-bomb missions were NOT the most devastating air attacks of WWII. Operating Meetinghouse hit Tokyo with incendiaries five months earlier. This single raid killed more people than died at Hiroshima or Nagasaki, and destroyed more square miles of city (25% of the entire city of Tokyo!). About 300 B-29s were used, and 14 were lost. Argue about the morality of destroying entire cities if you will, but we'd already demonstrated the capability WITHOUT resorting to nuclear power.

    The big difference? The Japanese didn't surrender after the 300-plane raid that composed Meetinghouse. They didn't surrender after another 300-plane raid a month later, or the 500-plane raid in late May, or the 450-plane raid two days later... and these are only the raids on Tokyo. However, they DID offer to surrender a week or so after Nagasaki was hit.

    Wars are bad, and they're worse when non-combatants are hurt. However, keep in mind that Japanese industry was so badly damaged by bombing that they were farming out work to small shops, and even individual families. Is a mother assembling machine guns in her home a legitmate wartime target? Decry area bombing if you will, but nukes merely made it easier. They certainly didn't enable it.

    Ron Wanttaja

  4. #24
    WeaverJ3Cub's Avatar
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    A very sad day indeed. Today as well.

    http://www.foxnews.com/world/2012/08...i-bomb-attack/

    Regardless of where you fall on the issue, I think we can agree on that.

    —Samuel

  5. #25
    Quote Originally Posted by Jf1450 View Post
    I just feel sorry for the poor guy who, after the Hiroshima drop got up, shook off the dirt and said "Screw this, I'm moving to Nagisaki."
    Here is THAT story!

    http://www.radiolab.org/blogs/radiol...ouble-blasted/

  6. #26
    Christopher Ingram's Avatar
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    When we lived in North Carolina we lived in the hometown of Mr. Thomas Ferebee, The bombardier from the Enola Gay. His family owned a farm on the outside of town and he had a bridge named for him right in front of the home. I didn't cross that bridge often but when I did I always stopped and took a minute to acknowledge what he did for us all. He was after all the man who actually dropped the bomb.
    My thought is this, the Japanese would have taken every conceivable chance to kill as many American's as possible during the invasion of their homeland(as I would expect of any country being invaded) and if these bombs saved even a single American life then it was well worth it.

  7. #27

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    Ron, I don't get the point that you and others have made about many civilians or even more being killed by the fire bombing of Tokyo than the atomic bomb. So what? That seems to me from a moral standpoint like saying that waterboarding is ok since others have done worse torture.
    By the way, the govt had a commitee to find a military target in Japan, they could not come up with a good one, and that is why the Bomb was used on civilian cities. This is clearly discussed in books on the whole atomic bomb story if you care to do some research. I do believe that the moral problem was considered by our govt, there was even the idea of a "demo" Bomb like just off shore or on an island. The problem was we did not have any to waste, and it might not have swayed the Japanese enough and would alert their defenses against B-29s even more though there was little they could do about it. The idea that some little old lady in a small shop was really the military target is silly.

    Mr. Ingram, if you control the question you control the answer, and if the only question you ask is to invade with or without the Bombs, that ignores the other question, of neither invading or using the Bomb, at least not right away. Ike said neither was necessary, Japan was pretty much finished.
    By the way, I knew the tail gunner of the Enola Gay, Bob Caron, I had a small financial part in helping him write his book.
    And if you say that even a single American life is worth several hundred thousand civilian Japanese lives, that is a pretty major statement from a moral standpoint; but there are probably many who would agree with you.

    And to give Pres. Truman the benefit to having to make the decision to use the Bomb, his primaryduty at the time was to protect the American troops, not really to protect the civilians of Japan. There was no easy and perfect answer, if Truman had waited even a few months to really try to find a negotiated peace, a few dozen or even hundred U S soldiers would die of the inevitable accidents or disease in the ocuupied islands. If B-29 raids were continued to bring the peace talks nearer, we may have lost some more air crews.
    I am glad it was not me who had to make such a decision.

    And Ron, you are right that Japan did not surrender after the fire Bomb raids. The sticking point to peace talks was, as I previously wrote, was letting the Emperor live and he was the only one who could make peace for Japan.

    In the end, we did agree to let him live, as I wrote above, and he made the peace. Japan did not immediatley surrender after the first Bomb, and we lauched the 2nd one in 48 hours without really giving the peace process much chance.

    Japan was such a closed society then, that the people did not even know they were losing the war for sure. Read Saburo Saki'a s book. When he came home to visit near the end of the war, he was explicitly told not to say a word about Japan's defeat at Iwo Jima, even when his girlfriend asked.
    Last edited by Bill Greenwood; 08-10-2012 at 08:37 AM.

  8. #28

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    Hal, If you comment about personal attacks is meant for me? I try not to make such attacks. but when someone asks what a new type of bomber which drops a radically new and totally experimental Bomb has to do with experimental airplanes; he is not really asking a question , he is just trying to shut off discussion.

    It is human nature, that so many people spend so much effort to avoid any idea that does not agree with the idea the already hold.

    At least in the U S, to some extent, unlike wartime Japan, we can hear info on other ideas if we care to listen.

  9. #29
    EAA Staff / Moderator Hal Bryan's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Bill Greenwood View Post
    Hal, If you comment about personal attacks is meant for me?
    Hi Bill - the thing I specifically objected to in your post was this:

    Quote Originally Posted by Bill Greenwood View Post
    Do you think, period?
    I think it's safe to assume that anyone participating here...thinks. At the very least, I'd suggest that fellow EAA members (or past or potential members for that matter) deserve the benefit of the doubt.

    Just FYI, there was another post by another forum user between yours and mine that was deleted (by the poster, to their credit, not by us) almost immediately that was only going to make things worse, hence the call for the course correction.

    Quote Originally Posted by Bill Greenwood View Post
    At least in the U S, to some extent, unlike wartime Japan, we can hear info on other ideas if we care to listen.
    Amen to that.

    Hal Bryan
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  10. #30
    rwanttaja's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Bill Greenwood View Post
    Ron, I don't get the point that you and others have made about many civilians or even more being killed by the fire bombing of Tokyo than the atomic bomb. So what? That seems to me from a moral standpoint like saying that waterboarding is ok since others have done worse torture.
    Please re-examine my postings on this subject: I have never made a statement saying it was OK "since others have done worse." My comparison was between two US attacks, with decisions made by the same political leaders, carried out by the same Air Force.

    So please answer: Why is killing 100,000 Japanese in one raid with an atomic bomb more immoral than killing 100,000 Japanese in one raid with conventional bombs? Why is August 6th a "Sad Day," and March 11th is not? Why isn't February 15 (the destruction of Dresden) a sad day, as well?

    Quote Originally Posted by Bill Greenwood View Post
    By the way, the govt had a commitee to find a military target in Japan, they could not come up with a good one, and that is why the Bomb was used on civilian cities. This is clearly discussed in books on the whole atomic bomb story if you care to do some research. I do believe that the moral problem was considered by our govt, there was even the idea of a "demo" Bomb like just off shore or on an island. The problem was we did not have any to waste, and it might not have swayed the Japanese enough and would alert their defenses against B-29s even more though there was little they could do about it. The idea that some little old lady in a small shop was really the military target is silly.
    Actually, I have done a bit of reading on this topic, though nothing recent. My opinions might be colored by a more-recent reading of Martin Caiden's "A Torch to The Enemy", about the Tokyo bombings.

    The little old lady gunmakers weren't the specified target, of course, but making war goods eliminates whatever protection they might expect. Wikipedia describes Hiroshima as 'a city of both industrial and military significance' and was the headquarters for the military defense of southern Japan.

    I don't know what to make of the casualty estimates of Operation Olympic; I don't know if the A-bomb attacks saved 10,000 American lives, 100,000, or one million.

    However, I *strongly* suspect they saved more Japanese civilian lives than they took. Invasions are costly to civilian population. House-to-house fighting in Hiroshima probably wouldn't have killed 80,000 people, but multiply that by hundreds of Japanese cities.

    And, do not forget the example of Saipan. 25,000 Japanese civilians lived on the island at the time of the US invasion. 2,000 survived. Many committed suicide rather than submit to the US occupation. I doubt the mainland would have been much better.

    Ron Wanttaja

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