The United States dropped the first atomic bomb on the Japanese city of Hiroshima, thus helping to lead to the swift end to WWII and saving countless American lives, and also preventing the Soviets from assembling a second empire in Asia. God Bless America!
RIP to the innocent Japanese civilians that suffered and died due to the idiocy of the Japanese hierarchy and military.
The bomb saved lives on both sides of the war. I read somewhere that when the War Department was planning a D-Day style invasion of the Japanese islands, that they were going to order over 1 million body bags, and they were worried that their estimate was going to be too low and this was based off of how the Japanese were fighting during the island hopping campaign. You also would have lost even more civilians in a ground war on the home islands. And even with a full scale invasion, a full surrender from the Japanese was doubtful. Dropping the bomb on Hiroshima and Nagasaki was 100% the right call and Truman is a hero in my eyes for doing it.
You also have to remember that these fuckers in their govt refused to surrender even after we bombed Hiroshima, it took a second bomb in Nagasaki to finally convince them, they were nuts. and i think that we were even planning to drop a third bomb on them as well.
I'll agree with this. The Japanese were arming 10 year old girls in anticipation of a land invasion. That speaks to how ugly a land invasion could've gotten.
My younger brother was a marine fighter pilot back in the 90s, did 2 tours. He feels Hiroshima is where we got revenge for Pearl Harbor. Much grander scale, but it's hard to argue with a military man who's predecessors were killed in a Sunday morning sneak attack while they were sleeping on boats. _
I personally probably might not be here today without it. My grandfather just finished his stateside training and was scheduled for deployment to the pacific shortly after they launched the bomb. While he was in flight training he served in the color guard and he was tasked to present the colors to the families back home who lost loved ones. Just some truly chilling stories about that. my grandfather was tough as nails, the toughest guy I have ever known and the only time I ever saw him cry in my life was when he was talking about the day they dropped the bomb and essentially saved his life and potentially millions more. They were tears of joy but immense emotion.
My Uncle on my Mom's side was in the main landing force on Iwo Jima. He refused to ever talk about it and my Mom said to never ask him about it--he never told anyone what he saw there. His foot locker was up in our attack and we were forbidden to ever go and look in it. Some truly horrific stuff happened in the South Pacific theater of war. _
how can one even expect to come back from that kind of stuff and not be completely tormented for life. thanks go to your uncle from me stokes.
First off, I totally get the "save lives in the long run" argument. That said (just playing devil's advocate here) there's also the argument that dropping the bomb prompted the Soviets to speed up their development of an atomic bomb which in turn eventually escalated into a near out of control nuclear weapons race between the good guys and the assholes. To put the ripple effect into context, the Cuban missle crisis followed a mere 17 yrs. later; a shorter period of time between WWI and WWII. Or better yet, maybe we should've just nuked those Bolshevik sons of bitches back into the Stone Age while we had the chance in '46 ...... : ) The small print reads: "Nuclear Warhead - Handle With Care" - lol
Hiroshima and Nagasaki were just the endpoint of a war strategy by the Allies that minimized respect for civilians and innocents caught in the path of the war. It was the logical endpoint for a war effort that had firebombed German and Japanese cities causing enormous loss of life in some of the most painful ways possible. If you really think there was anything heroic about WWII that just means you've bought into the Hollywood myths created during and after the war to justify our conduct, which was just as reprehensible as the Japanese and a Holocaust short of the Germans. 300,000 Jewish refugees applied for asylum in the US between March 1938 and September 1939. Do you know how many the land of the free admitted? 27,000. More than 100,000 people who requested asylum wound up in countries from which they were deported to death camps by the Nazi's. Hollywood doesn't mention that in it's heroic American version of WWII does it?
That doesn't mean that the powers that be need to incinerate women and children intentionally to prove the point. That's the kind of thing that the Devil does. Right?
we firebombed entire cities. But Bradway needs an education on Japanese atrocities and to even compare us to the Germans "short of the holocaust" makes him a dunce. That's like saying we go after women the same as Jared Fogle short of molesting teenage girls.
And you just knew when you started this thread that some liberal would come in and spout some disrespectful bullshit. You asked for it though, saying GBA about dropping nukes on people, you're just as foolish.
Okay.. my bad. I mistook that post as some kind of link to his other, more ridiculous point about not doing enough for jewish refugees. As if he was holding the U.S. responsible for Hitler's incineration of the Jews in the Holocaust. excuse my confusion over his vague posts that are designed to get a rise out of people. I am one of those people that buys into the Hollywood movies and think there might have been a little bit of heroism in that nasty war. how naive of me