I missed Hiroshima Day. And I didn't get you anything, either. Hey, for both the whiners and the cheerers: it's done. You can't unring a bell.
Especially if it was melted.
Lotta people died; lotta more people would've died in conventional war -- and the majority of them would have been Japanese, too.
BUILDING A 1:1 BALUN
4 years ago
7 comments:
I think estimated Japanese casualties during an invasion were estimated at about 5 million. Plus 1.5 million allied casualties. The fighting was projected to end about 1949.
Plus, there's no doubt the Russians would have demanded their pound of flesh, and we would have had the divided city of Tokyo, capital of the charming People's Democratic Republic of North Japan...
Perhaps ... just perhaps ... hindsight can help prevent future mistakes. What I find so distasteful is the practice of the whiners and breast beaters to condemn those historical figures who were not only forced to make war time decisions but also had to depend only on information of the time.
War time is never fun; warfare often precludes the luxury of afforded future ivory tower residents.
As Tam said, it can't be undone. Give it a rest.
Regards.
Oops ... it was Roberta who said what's done is done.
Sorry about that, Roberta.
Regards.
I wonder how much whining there'd be if it had been Stalin who dropped the bomb.
The original projections of invasion of Japan casualties were made with the assistance of Japanese experts and released in late 1946. Sort of released, it was "ancient history" and relegated to the back page of section F of the Trib.
Two and a half million Allied casualties, six million total Japanese dead, ten million plus Japanese wounded, pockets of starving holdouts as late as 1952, and Japan to become more than a pauper nation in no less than fifty years thereafter.
While the results of Hiroshima and Nagasaki are horrifying - failing to use the best weapons available would have both sides cost much, much more.
Stranger
Historian Stephen Ambrose once remarked that, had D-Day been a failure, it would have prolonged the war in Europe for at least another six months. As it was, the Nazis surrendered in May, 1945, just two months before the first successful A-bomb test. In that event the Allies would probably dropped Fat Man on Berlin. If for no other reason than to over-awe the Soviets; I think Mr. Churchill would have insisted.
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