Hiroshima justified? (was: Enola Gay: Burnt flesh and other magnificent technological achievements)

devil wrote in message ...
On Sun, 04 Jan 2004 16:39:39 +0100, Jeroen Wenting wrote:


To put it in contrast:
NOT using the nukes to end WW2 would have cost an estimated 500.000 US dead
and wounded and several million Japanese dead and wounded without taking
into account the longterm effects from minefields, poisonous residues, etc..
The two nukes together cost maybe 300.000 Japanese dead and wounded
(including longterm effects from radiation), or roughly 10% of the expected
total count of an invasion and no US victims at all (which certainly in time
of war is far more important).

Not using the nukes would also have prolonged WW2 by (estimated) 1-1.6 years
and might have given the USSR time to mount a fullscale invasion of western
Europe, turning all of Europe into a part of the USSR (thus effectively
undoing what the allies had achieved there).

That is, if you decide to believe the propaganda. One can always
"estimate." Mostly in order to build up a case/excuse.

That's a tad unfair. They had some pretty good, current, data upon
which to base their estimates. They had been taking islands all the
way in. The Allies had alot of experience in amphibious landings
by this point. They understood all too well what they were up
against. Could they have been conservative in their estimates?
Maybe, we'll never know. We do know it wasn't all a smoke screen
since as I understand it they are STILL using the purple hearts
ordered back then in anticipation of mass distribution from the
invasion of the homeland. Somebody thought that we'd have alot
of casualties.


Make no mistake, Stalin understood what this was about though. First
salvo in the cold war. Truman setting up on a path meant to rewrite
Yalta and Tehran.

Because there were ancillary advantages and long term side effects
doesn't mean that the basic decision was based upon them. It was
like a gift, the ability to send one plane to drop one bomb which
could completely destroy one city. For a country which had
sent hundreds of bombers, on multiple sorties, to attempt to
destroy a single manufacturing facility, it must have sounded like
science fiction.


Japanese civilians were eminently expandable. Truman: "When you have to
deal with a beast you have to treat him as a beast. It is most regrettable
but nevertheless true."

Context is everything and it seems to get lost in these discussions.
The US was in it's 4th year of war. Seemingly every block in every
town had a gold star in some window. Red stars were plentyful.
People had gone without contact with husbands and fathers and brothers
for 4 years. The economy was in a funny sort of standstill where folks
had money, and little upon which to spend it. Wages were frozen,
some items were rationed, and things like new cars and tires were
nonexistent. People were tired, very tired, and many had lived
through a depression just preceding this time. Not to mention
dust bowls. And then someone came along and a offered a huge
weapon which could end the war in DAYS. It was like a fairy tale.
The big super secret weapon that would anilate the enemy. You
better believe Truman used it. In those days, they'd a probably
tried him for treason if he had not.

And be careful about deciding who knew what when. Remember world
wide communications didn't exist then as it does now. Rumors were
rampant. There were no international hot lines with enemies.
We may know more now than any single person back then could be
certian of. And there may be things they believed then, which we
now know isn't true.