blonde poker forum

THIS POST CONTAINS OFFENSIVE MATERIAL

"Work" has seriously eaten into my available reading time in 2006, and I've barely managed to read 30 books this year.

Naturally, they were all non-fiction, &, with a few days peace & quiet at Christmas, I wanted to share the pleasures of 1 or 2 of them with you. Here's the first, & the one that affected me most, which was, for me, the Best Read of the Year, 2006.

"SHOCKWAVE - THE COUNTDOWN TO HIROSHIMA", by STEPHEN WALKER

This is an absolute heart-breaking tale, & if this one does not make you stop & think, nothing will.

Tells the story of the development of the Atomic Bomb that was eventually used to bomb Japan, & end World War 2. It only took 6 months or so to develop, & they did test blasts in the New Mexico Desert. They knew they had something awesomely powerful when the sand in the desert turned to glass - literally!

Anyway, eventually they decide to bomb Japan with this horrendous device.

And they do just that.

It's tough to explain how horrific an A-Bomb is when it's dropped in the middle of a City occupied by civilians.

The lucky ones - & I mean lucky - were vaporised instantly, & no traces of their bodies were ever found.

Two days later, another A-Bomb was dropped, this time Nagasaki copped it - it was intended for another city, but that city got lucky (!) when cloud cover buggered the plans up.

Some 250,000 folk died. There was not a single "Allied" or American death, or even injury. Impressive stuff.

If the "lucky ones" were vaporised, what about the rest?

"....within a 1 kilometre radius of the hypocentre, the heat was sufficeint to instantly evaporate the internal organs of human beings...."

"...birds spontaneously ignited in mid-flight...."

"...everyone within 500 metres of the hypocentre died immediately......

"..the shockave travelled at 10,000 feet per second. Behind the shockwave the air was sucked out of the atmosphere forming a semi-vacuum. Peoples eyes or viscera were vacuumed out of their bodies......"

".......80,000 died within the first 3 seconds of the bomb exploding......"

A survivor tells of what someone from the "outer zone" looked like.

"......I did not know if it was a man or woman. It did not even look human. Black, from head to foot, with shreds of clothing hanging off it's grotesquely disfigured body. But they were not shreds of clothing - it was flesh. Burning flesh.

It's eyes protruded like golf balls. No hair, burned away, no nose, nose gone, lips swollen to half the size of their face, and a big gaping hole where it's mouth was........." 

Alive though - alive enough to walk, or stagger, or crawl.

100,000 suffered like this. They did not die immediately, they lingered, & mostly died within 24 hours. In the open streets. From shock, & trauma, in the main. Imagine THAT.

OK, now let's switch to Tinian Island, a small Pacific Island, 8 hours flying time away. This was the USAF Base from where the 7 plane mission had originated, with the bomb itself on "Enola Gay".

Before take-off, they'd had a Press Conference. They were in a party atmosphere, there were streamers and bunting, & a band played on the side of the runway. It was "Hip hip hooray, we are going to bomb those mother******* and then Japan will surrender." kinda thing.

After the bombing, they returned to Tinian to a welcoming party. The war was, effectively, over. A flyer had been Roneo'd off & distributed, this was the evening's fare....

"FREE BEER PARTY, 2pm

FOUR BOTTLES OF BEER PER MAN

NO RATION CARD NEEDED

LEMONADE FOR THOSE WHO EDO NOT CARE FOR BEER

ALL STAR SOFTBALL GAME 2pm

JITER BUG CONTEST

NOVELTY ACTS

FREE FOOD GALORE"

Now, this was 8 hours "post-bomb". Here were the Americans whooping it up.

8 hours away, 100,000 folks were laying in the streets. Not dead - they should be so lucky - but dying. Slowly. From shock. Trauma. Blood loss. Mutilation. Most of them had been blinded. Radiation sickness was the least of their problems, they'd not last 48 hours. Only the "survivors" suffered from radiaton sickness. And their children.

And this is the rub. At the exact moment that 100,000 or so Japanese were dying in such hideous pain, the Americans were having their Jitterbug Contest & free beer & stuff.

Winning with dignity is clearly not something done in wartime.

This Post is not anti-American, not at all. And yes, I know, the Japanese did some grotesque things to "us". Us to them, ditto, I'm quite sure, too, War is like that. And it's true, those two Atomic Bombs ended the war, & maybe saved tens of thousands of deaths.

And who'd be the politician - in this case, President Truman - who had to make the agonisingly awful decision to drop those bombs, knowing full well the consequences?

I can't get over that image. At simultaneous moments, the Americans were having their Jitter Bug Contest, & the Japanese were dying in the streets, of hideous injuries, with no Doctors or Hossies to aid their passing, no help, no shelter, not so much as a blanket to cover them up.

It's possible - just - to take positives from this book. Winning with dignity ain't amongst 'em though.

A stunning book. Read it & wonder at just how bad can Mankind be unto Mankind.

Not all is fair in love and war and I think that the nuking of two cities full of civilians ranks up there with the holocaust in terms of man's inhumanity to man.

Moving stuff
I'm sure the party would have been prepared in advance though and the airmen wouldn't have had any first hand accounts of the horror they had just caused. No CNN to report the aftermath.

War is Hell!

It makes no difference whether it's mass destruction in one fell swoop like Heroshima, or 100s of 1000s of individual horror stories from Galipoli or the Somme.

What have we (mankind) learned? Nothing. It goes on as we speak.

You are not wrong.

Mentioning the somme the book that grabbed me most this year was The Somme by Peter Hart an account of the battle which includes alot of first hand material from those on the front line (English, French and German). Gives a detailed account of the horror, heroism and sometimes humour of the soldiers life.

As it happens, that is the sidebar to this story. We take instant "real-time" communication for granted these days, we play Online Poker against peeps the other side of the world day after day.

Believe it or not, the Hiroshima A-Bomb was not reported anywhere - (because nobody knew) not even in Japan - for 7 hours..... Think on THAT! Even the planes could not Radio back to base, Comms were not so good in those days.

It was the worst and the most needless act of his life, if he just wanted to defeat the Japanese he could have invited them to a demonstration in New Mexico, the reason he chose to kill all those innocent people was simply to send a message to Russia that he was capable of using them, truly shocking, can you imagine if that happened today!!


As for the book, i am too lazy to read them, bad i know but if i do start reading again i will deffo check it out, sounds very good.

For sure, he was sending a message to Russia. Not overly subtle, either.

You really should read more non-fiction Flushy, & watch less TV dross. I think books are one of the greatest material things we can ever possess. I must have 2,000 of them, I could not begin to explain the pleasure they have given me.

Try audio-books Flushie.

As it happens the only TV i watch is the stuff i download, the big American drama series stuff, its great escapism when i am having a rough time at the tables.

The only stuff i used to read was non fiction, anything history related. I was mad about history at school (thanks mainly to an excellent engaging teacher. It's what i would have done had i gone to Uni.



I might just do that, Tighty helped me out a while back with my problem of boredom in the longer structured events, he suggested podcasts and they have had a positive impact on me so far so i will give the Audio books a go. Is it possible to get all books on Audio?

I don't know about all books, but I've downloaded a few.

I dont think there are many books that arent in audio form now

Do any of you know how many were killed at Pearl Harbour? How many were killed in Serbia or Yugoslavia? What about how many people were wiped out by the famines in Africa over the last 10 years. Death is the only thing guaranteed in life and although many lost their lives in Nagasaki and Hiroshima I think that "demonstration" as people liked to call it saved hundreds of thousands of lives by bringing that war to an end. As long as countries go to war innocent people will get killed its just one of those things you have to accept. Our country has been one of the biggest killers of innocents over the years (going back through the middle ages etc) so I don't think people should make such a big deal about the atom bomb, if we had developed it first we would have used it as would the Russians or the Japanese. The fact that they had a party a few hours later should not be a surprise to anyone, not the best of losers or winners are the Yanks- maybe they should try not taking part so often.

Great topic for Christmas Day btw guys.

Peal Harbour 2468 dead(68 civilians), Hiroshima 80,000 Nagasaki 73,000 not including the post explosion radiation deaths.

I'll get to a more lengthy reply at some other time.

For now, I'll just say that I'm a bit shocked by the Lack of any historical perspective demonstrated by 2 posters I have a lot of respect for. (Flushy and TK)

Historical revisionism is probably a bigger threat to mankind than the wars themselves in that it dooms us to repeat them over and over.

PS. Those who have experienced combat know 1st hand there be NO glory in war. Only suffering and death.

Ron, it's not a history thing, or an American thing. I have no history knowledge, or not much.

It's an "how terrible can man be to man?" thing. The book moved me deeply. That's all, there was no Nationalist or Political points being scored. I was moved by the book (which was written by an American) & wanted to share what I'd learned. That's all.

I'll specifically address this point then get to the others.

I the situation we're discussing, the two atomic bomb usages in Japan, dignity just doesn't come into play.
After spending 4 years at war in a vicious campaign against a fanatical enemy, any rational human combatant is going to feel a joy and a desie to celebrate knowing that the end of all the insanity has either been reached or is nigh.

For the aircrews, it was knowing that they wouldn't have to spend another year wondering whether or not their lives would be blotted out from the sky in a blinding flash, or perhaps even more demoralizing, knowing they wouldn't have to watch their friends and squadron mates lives evaporate anymore.

For the grunts, it meant no more running into the path of bullets and bombs and mortars and suicide charges, and no more watching your friend's guts flowing out of him as his life ebbs away.

For the sailors, it meant no more kamikaze attacks, no more 2AM torpedoings, no more endless bombardments on barely seen enemies.

On the whole then, the end of war, or even a specific war, is certainly a time for celebration as it means the end of all these horrors. IOW celebration certainly isn't meant to dignify a frightening act (in this case use of an aweful new weapon killing 100,000s) but more to celebrate life and those who will retain their lives do to the end of it all.

I'm glad my combat exposure was short lived, and yes, I did celebrate returning from it unscathed. But I certainly wasn't celebrating killing or fighting I was celebrating the surviving, (both my own survival and the men who were with me through it).

Anywayz, I'll address the other historical issues, from Truman's decision to other far more horrific events from WWII, at length at a later time. With this post, I'm more just trying to contextualize what a writer may have taken out of context regarding a "celebration" by these specific aircrews.

Happy Boxing Day All.

wow, i agree sh1t happens

Thank you Mr F, & Happy Boxing Day to you. Peaceful, hopefully, too......

1) I have never seen armed combat, thank goodness, so I speak not from experience, but from a humanitarian position.

2) I don't or would not care how pleased my fellow countrymen & myself are at the thought that the war is over, & our souls are saved, & we shall be spared further suffering. If, at this precise moment, 50,000 humans are laying in the street, hideously wounded, dying slowly - 48 hours must be a lifetime when the flesh has been blown off your bones & your eyeballs sucked out of their sockets - then for me - for ME - I'm gonna show those poor civilians - civilians - just a bit of human decency.

3) There is no need to "contextualize what a writer may have taken out of context". He took nothing out of context - what I Posted was the thing that stuck in my mind, that distressd me so, & that I will never forget. The reason it was the most memorable book I read in 2006, out of 30 odd.

It was not sermonising, moralising, or anti-American-ing.

It was just, "oh my God, how TERRIBLE that one could celebrate such suffering". I cannot conceive of any force of argument that would make me change my mind - "Man is capable of such dreadful things, as a race (Humans) we should be ashamed of what we do to each other". There are plenty more examples just as bad, but that one was new to me.

I am less well versed on the Truman argument, & probably incapable of a reasonable defence to any coherent argument you put up in that respect - I'll leave Flushy to sort that one!

Anyway, I hope you are well, & I look forward to seeing you. All the best in '07.

In the battle of the Somme 25,000 scottish soildiers and 5,500 Ulster soildiers was lead to slaughter on the first day of that horrible battle .
which is the worst day of british army strategies as they do admit they got it very wrong
This year was the 90th anniversarie of that day and i would like to say how brave all every soildier was as the knew what stood before them...

Not coming home

I also am glad you haven't seen armed combat. I'd be glad if no-one EVER had to see it again. Alas, it is the way of men and their governments, that this wish is likely never to be fulfilled.


Neither the aircrews nor their squadrons, nor their PR masters are likely to have understood the full humanitaian effects of these new horrible weapons. Therefore, as they landed and celebrated it is reasonable to assume they wouldn't have known about thousands of dying humans in the street.

Even if they did know, and that's a really big IF, what could or should they do about it? They were fighting a war. As I and so many far more eloquent authors and historians have covered across history, war is FKN HELL! Anyone who sells glory is FOS. No one understands this fact more thouroughly than those who have to fight the wars. No one wants them to end more than those who have to fight them.

There is no aid level they could have provided. There is no level of comfort or relief they cold have provided. Asking them to NOT celebrate survival and the near end of the war is not a reasonable expectation and belies a misunderstanding of the very mixed emotion most combat veterans (including myself)feel. It is a mix of horror at what you have done (violated the most basic law of civilization, killing/murder) and absolute relief to have survived the ordeal whilst mourning friends who haven't survived.

IOW, I agree completely with you that as humans and as a civilized society, we SHOULD react with shock and horror at the outrageous acts of barbarity men are capable of committing upon each other, but at the same time understand the simple small scale reaction of those we compel to commit these acts in the name of a greater good.


I haven't read the book, (but I likely will as I have an active interest in these sorts of topics) so couldn't say for sure what specific context the author is using, but until then I return to the above argument about the differences between a societys' reaction and a specific military units' reaction.



Fully understood and accepted.
(Especially since if we were giving out "horrors of war" achievement medals America wouldn't even be in the running for Bronze based upon WWII actions)


I wouldn't want to change your mind on the shock or disgust at these horrors of war. In fact I'd be happy if they stuck with you and your children and others and their children for the simple fact that it should make it less likely for civilized societies to send our children to future wars. And to reiterate, they were more than likely celebrating survival NOT suffering.


I won't get into the actuarial debate about bomb vs invasion decisions until I see an informed, reasoned argument from Flushy supporting his previous repsonse.


Same Here! Hopefully I'll at least see you and the Blonde Crew at WSOP 2007.

I thought Flushy had made his argument here:

"if he just wanted to defeat the Japanese he could have invited them to a demonstration in New Mexico"

which is a fair point IMO. I don't claim to be well versed on the topic but Flushy's idea doesn't seem to be far off the mark for me. Maybe a demonstration in New Mexico was wishful thinking, but one off the coast of Japan perhaps?

A nation who's idea of warfare was to send its own pilots out to fly into the enemy ships etc. I know why don't we invite them over to a demonstration of how powerful our new weapon is and give them chance to strike at our hierarchy. I'm sure Flushy would've gone far in the American Defence dept.

My understanding of the trueman arguement, tho i will say there are a load of people more qualified to speak on it than me. Is that a full scale invasion of mainland Japan would have cost around 5 times more deaths in total than the dropping of the two a bombs. Remember Japan was a country which prided itself on fighting to the very last man and were already sending kamikaze pilots to blow up us warships. Against such an opposition the US at the time could have only reasoned that a total defeat of the enemy would end the war.

If you have such a weapon as the atom bomb which if it worked would end the war within a week and give the Japanese no option but to surrender you ARE going to use it, no country in the world involved in such a war would risk 100 000+ of its own citizens in favour of such an outcome.

I know what i have said so far is very cold hearted but there are many people alive in the us, japan and this country because of truemans decision. War is a horrible despicalble thing which ruins countries, towns and families, i hope to never see it in my lifetime up close.

Historically there are arguements the pure devistation these bombs caused prevented further wars, would the us and ussr have been so hesistant to use them during the cold war if  they had not been aware of the consequences?

Also Ron's arguements are very valid having fought such a bloody war for 3 and half years, the psyche of the americans must have been to win at all costs and personally i don't blame them.

A most eloquent response Ron.

I don't think we can ever reconcile our thoughts, but in fact, they are not far apart.

Please read the book, it's breathtaking.

Health permitting, I shall be in Vegas this year, & I look forward to hooking up with you once again.

A peaceful '07 to you.

Dropping nuclear bombs on a city full of civilians is shear cowardice, doing it twice beggars belief.

Of course it would not have been done if the compliment could have been returned.

Would the the people who think it was a good idea feel the same if their family lived in one of the cities flattened.

The first A-Bomb was dropped on Hiroshima. Diplomatic Consultations then took place, & the Japanese Emperor was engaged in dialogue with his Government with a view to a total surrender. Terms were being negotiated, when, 4 days or so later, the second bomb was dropped without warning on Nagasaki. Surrender was then immediate.

A means to an end, & all that?

I may be wrong here but I seem to remember reading somewhere that while terms were being negotiated an attack took place on an American ship by a team of Kamikazes killing many American servicemen. The bomb followed to make sure they had an unconditional surrender meaning the end of the war. If we had the bomb we would have used it on the germans and if they had had it (they very nearly did don't forget) they would've used it on us. I really believe the bomb saved many more lives than it took, OK there were many innocents killed but the war had gone on for a long time and it wasn't near an end before the bombs were dropped. If they hadn't attacked Pearl Harbour I doubt they would have got involved so quickly and so violently. War is evil but it is a fact of life and it will always happen, no way will the world ever be at piece and IMO we should just be happy we aren't involved to heavily on these shores and most warfare takes place on foreign soil (selfish maybe but I believe in looking after myself and my own).

I didn't mean the whole country!!! I was more thinking the ambassador! Maybe it wouldn't have worked, the Japanese psyche after all was very much no surrender, but surely it was worth a go.

If it didn't work then yes i would have supported the bomb over invasion.

Best Read of the year?? Hmm, ill go for Phil Ivey vs Actionjack when heads up in Monte Carlo, raise reraise rereraise stuff on each other on the flop. Brilliant.

The logistical and strategic reasons for this are numerous.

1: The Japanese Gorvernment WAS warned about the new SUPERWEAPON and dismissed it.

2: Even after the 1st bomb was dropped on Hiroshima they continued to fight. Discussions about how they were considering surrender and just discussing the terms amongst themselves is at best histoical revisionism.

3: Understand, Japan at this time was completely a military dicatorship. The emperor was maintained for pure appearances of the citizenry.
Also understand that Japanese military forces were continuing to fight (to the last man and even last civilian) before, during, and after Hiroshima.

4: The Japanese military leaders KNEW they had much to answer for (Look no further then their conduct in China and The Philipines) and as many people in these situations reat they will continue fighting until the very credible threat of complet extinction is made clear. That threat would ony be credible for these leaders with the use of the bomb on an actual Japanese target.

5: As another poster has alluded to: It is highly likely that well after WWII, knowing and understanding the effects of these weapons upon real people and real cities significantly added to the credibility of the MAD (Mutually Assured Destruction) threat which in some large part at least kept the superpower blocs of the Cold War from taking the final insane step of launching on each other.

I spent 3 years on an OHIO class submarine (SSBN http://www.fas.org/nuke/guide/usa/slbm/ssbn-726.htm (http://www.fas.org/nuke/guide/usa/slbm/ssbn-726.htm)) armed with Trident Missiles (http://www.fas.org/nuke/guide/usa/slbm/d-5.htm (http://www.fas.org/nuke/guide/usa/slbm/d-5.htm)), so I spent a long time podering these types of issues. Tis a rather ominous job to not only operate one of the most complex and dangerous pieces of machinery in history, but also know that ultimately you could be called upon to end the world using it.

Fortunately and unfortunately the nuclear genie cannot be put back in the bottle.
Fortunately, because my sincere belief is that peaceful nuclear power is the only viable significant energy source for humanity in the future.
Unfortunately, because this technowledgy was born from and produced weapons of barely comprhensible power.

On a different note:
In repsonse to CelticGeezer's notion that bombing a city is sheer cowardice; Agreeing or disagreeing wth the decision to drop the bomb is one thing but cowardice? Absolutely wrong! It takes sheer courage to make that decision knowing the likely outcome.

This cowardice statement belies an absolute misunderstanding of almost ALL of WWII history, and in fact most of the histories of mans' wars. The population of a warmaking state is a fundamental weapon in it's warmaking abilty. This applies specifically to the Japanese of WWII who were certainly engaged routinely against all enemies.

See Saipan, see Tarawa, see China, see The Philipines, see Okinawa, see Korea, see Siam(Thailand), see Burma, see any other country touched by the Japanese war machine from 1930 onward.

In Summary: The United States Government and Military had much to answer for at the conclusion of the war. Most of which was reasonably committed to the horrid acts committed to prevent even further horrid acts category. Some which perhaps may never reasonably be answered (In my mind the firebombings, along with the British of numerous German cities for little to no strategic gain). And then some questions we shall and probably don't need to know of or understand.

Along with this though, the Germans and Japanese had a FAR FAR FAR FAR FAR greater toll to answer for at wars conclusion.
Additionaly, The British and other allies also had items to answer for.

No unit or country goes through a significant conflict without numerous moral dilemmas being confronted. Noone escape these conficts with clean hands. To assume it were possible or likely would be the height of naievity and is nearly as ridiculous as making blanket "XXXX was sheer cowardice" statements.

I hope Tony's next book is Fly Fishing by J R Hartley.

its a book about mathematical theorems actually...his book #2 that is...three minutes in to his sneak preview of it tonight various listeners were losing the will to live.

One Final Note:

An Event during WWII I find more disturbing than the atomic bomb drops.

Interesting read re: barbarism of man in warfare.

]http://www.fpp.co.uk/books/Dresden/index.html] (http://www.fpp.co.uk/books/Dresden/index.html)

There is a big difference between a warning and a demonstration.





Of that i happen to agree, however it doesn't make Truman's decision a good one, just a lucky one (just like stacking off with 72 and hitting quads)





Of course you have both more experience and have spent more time thinking about this than i have, however like i say i agree that on the whole both the development of nuclear technology and in particular the bomb have SAVED more lives than they have taken.




Yeah i was puzzled by this as well, we seem to call people 'cowards' when they do things we don't like. What he did was not cowardly.

David Irving?
Not the best choice of author for someone looking for historical facts imo

OH SHT! didnt notice that arse was the author. Anywayz look a little deeper (there are numerous books on the subject) and you might see that the Dresden fire bombing was it's own horror.

The Russian's seemed pretty keen to target the UK with ICBMs during the Suez Canal Crisis in 1956.

One other thing to think about. Modern nuclear weapons are far more powerful in destructive power than those dropped during World War II, and can be launched from anywhere in the world.

Here's something I've just learned from searching the internet....

"There have been (at least) four major false alarms, the most recent in 1995, that almost resulted in the U.S. or USSR/Russia launching its weapons in retaliation for a supposed attack. Additionally, during the Cold War the U.S. and USSR came close to nuclear warfare several times, most notably during the Cuban Missile Crisis. As of 2005, there are estimated to be at least 29,000 nuclear weapons held by at least eight countries, 96 percent of them in the possession of the United States and Russia."

Quoated from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_weapons (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_weapons)

Interesting points on both sides.  There might even be logical and humanitarian arguments for dropping the first bomb on Hiroshima (not that I agree with them, but they are there).

However, the rationale for the second bomb dropped on Nagasaki is very loose.  Effectively it boils down to the opportunity to test a 'different' sort of bomb.  Not in terms of the death and destruction, but just in terms of the technology and physics.

The bombing of Dresden, the persecution of the Allied forces by the Japanese, the genocide of the Jews by the Germans, the use of the a-bomb on the people of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.  All works of evil, and not proportional acts of war. 

I had the opportunity to visit the museum of the atomic bombing in Hiroshima - and it's a haunting place.  Not in terms of 'us versus them', or how war puts two groups of people separated only by geography against each other; but in terms of how the human mind can focus so well on science to create a weapon that can destroy so many people in the blink of an eye - it's frightening and spellbinding.  It really is sickeningly awesome to think that mankind has the ability to create a weapon of such obscene brilliance.

I haven't read the book Tikay mentioned, but I might look it up.  I've got about 10 poker books that I want to read before Copenhagen (I need to read them), and another 10 books of general interest (including several by Richard Dawkins that look very, very interesting).  But once they're done, I might have a look at this one.  This sort of book certainly helps to make you look at your own humanity in a more critical light.

Merry Xmas everyone, by the way...

I agree with you  entirely and cant see and cant really see the difference apart from the fact that the Americans did it twice.

Without getting too deep into moral bodycount scale measuring, I think a reasonable case can be put forth that the atomic bomb drops had certain significant objectives which may or may not have outweighed the horror of their use.

The firebombings of Dresden, Hamburg, and Tokyo on the other hand were simply cases of weak attempts at terrorizing a population with little to no strategic military objective. The German cities detroyed, had minimal effect upon the European theater in that the end of the war was nigh with a reasonable expectation that X thousands more casualties on both sides would be suffered before the final end regardless of whether Dresden and Hamburg burned or not.

WRT the atomic bombs, it was a reasonable expectaion that >>100,000s lives would actually be saved if they served their purpose and ended that war in two blinding horrific flashes.

PS: For Flushy: The Tokyo firebombing (as vile and seemingly purposeless as it was)  should have served a fair notice upon Japans rulers about the ability, extent, and determination of the Allies to destroy Japan's fighting ability. Their response was nil as it was to Hiroshima. So, one might deduct from this that a non targeted atomic bomb detonation would be even less likely to force capitulation.

You appear to be missing the point, if my next door neighbour is a big guy and annoys me but might cause me some damage if I complain so I burn his house down with his family in it. I am not a hero but a coward.

This metaphor does not make much sense to me.

Ok then. you are saying that invading Japan would have involved the killing of  a lot of American troops, therefore nuking out over 150 thousand Japanese civilians was not only a good idea but indeed a heroic action worthy of a party.

Perhaps Baghdad should have been nuked too along with North Korea and Iran.

I think quite a lot of Japanese would have died in an invasion too - possibly more than 150,000...

Sorry I didn't realise that nuking out two cities full of civilians was indeed a life saving exercise. I hope that the residents realise just how lucky they were.

That is correct.

If Allied/US forces decided upon an invasion of The Japanes Home Islands, the casualties to American forces would have been tremendous, 50,000 to 100,000 is a wholly reasonable expectaion. Now consider the state of the Japanese military at that point and the complete air superiority US forces would have enjoyed it is very likely that Japanese casualites would have well exceeded 500,000 and perhaps even 1,000,000.

Looking at it from this perspective, which is the least horrid? 100,000 - 200,000 dying in blidning flashes (or within weeks of those flashes) or 500,000+ dying over an invasion period of months along with the near irreperable damage to Japan's remaining infrstructure.

Ok so what you are saying is that the American invasion was compulsory.

And that your troops would have killed even more innocent civilians than your nukes did?

 A reasonable case can be made for this theory. Yes.

PS Innocent is a word bandied about far too often WRT these types of circumstances.
How would you react to an invasion of you home island? I assume you are not a curent member of the miltary BUT that as things were going poorly for the military and a foreign invasion force was closing on your home you may start fighting.

Now take this metaphor and think about the state of the Japanese populace. In a different time, with a far different culture, and a heavy handed military dictatorship and well controlled propagada machine. A very strong case can be made that a large % of the populace would have assited or actively participated in resistance of an American invasion.


Now where on the grand scale of innocence do thes civilians fit?

It is still a war crime and I hope we can expect some charges soon, because I am sure less people died at  Srebrenica.

The fourth Geneva Convention ("Relative to the Protection of Civilian Persons in Time of War") covers all individuals "who do not belong to the armed forces, take no part in the hostilities and find themselves in the hands of the Enemy or an Occupying Power".


Protected civilians MUST be:
- Treated humanely at all times and protected against acts or threats of violence, insults and public curiosity.
- Entitled to respect for their honour, family rights, religious convictions and practices, and their manners and customs.
- Specially protected, for example in safety zones, if wounded, sick, old, children under 15, expectant mothers or mothers of children under 7.
- Enabled to exchange family news of a personal kind. - Helped to secure news of family members dispersed by the conflict
- Allowed to practise their religion with ministers of their own faith. Civilians who are interned have the same rights as prisoners of war. They may also ask to have their children interned with them, and wherever possible families should be housed together and provided with the facilities to continue normal family life. Wounded or sick civilians, civilian hospitals and staff, and hospital transport by land, sea or air must be specially respected and may be placed under protection of the red cross/crescent emblem.

Protected civilians must NOT be:
- Discriminated against because of race, religion or political opinion. - Forced to give information.
- Used to shield military operations or make an area immune from military operations.
- Punished for an offence he or she has not personally committed. - Women must not be indecently assaulted, raped, or forced into prostitution.

For more information see the Red Cross web site.

Ok. Your last two posts have moved into a completely different direction and seem (at least to me) to have little bearing on the original discussion.

I doubt I will change your mind or give you a different perspective, so I'll just bid you adieu and peace.

Hmm mm, sorry I would like to apologise for introducing facts into the conversation

I disagree completely with your poiint # 2. Just because it goes sgainst one's argument, we can't conveniently label it "historical revisionism".

It's on the way. Fascinting stuff - "perfect numbers" & all that, magial stuff, and includes insects that breed every 17 years & how to calculate the length of any river in the world.

But I'm sorry, you'll have to wait, I'm off out today.

For me, this wins "BEST POST OF THE THREAD" by a mile.

I wonder if Mad Yank would still write this if the bomb was dropped on NY by Germans of Japanese?  Whether he would still call this act of mass murder of civilians courageous and necessary?

The Japanese army had proved itself to be quite adept at barbarity over the years leading upto WW2 and continued this during the war.
150,000 dead civilians is no big deal in terms of WW2's overall statistics.
Japan hasn't been to war since or had any "incidents" in China as they euphemistically called the rape and torture of Chinese civilians.
So by not going to war since 1945 the Japanese haven't inflicted anymore civilian murders on any country, they have had their country rebuilt and they are one of the strongest economic nations in the world.
All because of dropping the bomb.
I dare say if your grandparents were wiped out in Hiroshima you might have a different view to someone who's grandmother was raped and had her babies head smashed against a wall by Japanese soldiers at the fall of Singapore.
But the view that you would share is that no-one should have to go through the same experience, and since 1945 no-one has.

Of course not, he could not be objective.

I hate when people use that argument.

Well the fact is that atom bomb was aimed at civilians so where is the courage here? it was barbaric act and can't be excused. 



I hope you are talking about atom bomb and not other atrocities that were committed against humanity by megalomaniac leaders all over the world.

Seeing as that is what the convo is about, i think you can be safe thats exactly what is meant.

The Japanese haven't committed any atrocites since the bomb was dropped.