Kent_Mackem
Striker
15 years is a blink of an eye though....
If we’re hoping to be around for another couple of hundred at least.
75 years since the bomb
- Thread starter Football Dinosaur
- Start date
If we’re hoping to be around for another couple of hundred at least.
Lankester Merrin
Striker
There is a massive gap between how historians see the dropping of the bombs - that they did little or nothing to shorten the war
And how the public see it
I'm not really sure how widespread that belief actually was, or why it is massively relevant.
The Japanese Emperor had only been restored 70 years previously. Most Japanese follow a mix of Shinto and Buddhism
And how the public see it
The emperor of Japan was revered as a god and worshipped accordingly at the time.
Theocracy - Wikipedia
en.wikipedia.org
Japan[edit]
The emperor was historically venerated as the descendant of the Shinto sun goddess Amaterasu. Through this line of descent, the emperor was seen as a living god who was the supreme leader of the Japanese people. This status only changed with the Occupation of Japan following the end of the Second World War when Emperor Hirohito was forced to declare that he was not a living god in order for Japan to reorganize into a democratic nation.[36]
I'm not really sure how widespread that belief actually was, or why it is massively relevant.
The Japanese Emperor had only been restored 70 years previously. Most Japanese follow a mix of Shinto and Buddhism
Last edited:
for anyone saying 'they were beaten', or 'look at all the people that were killed'
have a look at the projected casualty figures for Downfall and August Storm - planners were estimating in the region of 1,000,000 for each operation (and thats the good guy casualties only)
or they could have not used the bombs and not invaded, and just continued on with firebombing every Japanese city whilst starving them out with a blockade
whichever way, sucks to be Japanese
have a look at the projected casualty figures for Downfall and August Storm - planners were estimating in the region of 1,000,000 for each operation (and thats the good guy casualties only)
or they could have not used the bombs and not invaded, and just continued on with firebombing every Japanese city whilst starving them out with a blockade
whichever way, sucks to be Japanese
Lord Potts
Striker
I don't think that there is much of a disagreement about the status of the Emperor in Japanese society at the time. The military regime had certainly elevated him to the position of a god. His troops were fully prepared to a man to die for him and many of them did so defending the Pacific Islands. No one could be physically higher than the Emperor and look down upon him and his radio message to the Japanese people announcing the surrender was the first occasion on which the great majority of Japanese people had actually heard the Emperor speak. He had never spoken in public before the fact that he did so impressed upon them that it was the Emperor calling for the surrender.
The Emperor recorded his message to his people the day before it was broadcast. It is well documented that a group of officers who were determined to carry on with the War attempted a Coup against the government by trying to capture the recording and the Emperor himself in an effort to hold him in some sort of "protective custody" However the Coup attempt failed and the surrender broadcast went ahead the following morning.
It was even the case that some elements of the Japanese Air Force still continued to attack US planes days after US troops had landed in Japan in order to take control . American planes flying recon missions over Japan to monitor surrender activity were attacked and fired upon on several occasions by a few Japanese fighters that were left. The Yanks had to order that all of Japans remaining planes had to have their propellers removed in order to enforce the end of hostilities.
maghater
Striker
no way would Japan have accepted an unconditional surrender unless it was brought to its knees, and this fact was evident to the general population. It is often overlooked that the Japanese Empire was responsible for horrendous war crimes, which included mass genocide.
which would have been a one-way trip since the Lanc could fly neither high enough or fast enough to get out of range after dropping the bomb
Japan wasn’t essentially beating. Now whether we had to use the bomb is a separate story, but doing so probably saved hundreds of thousands of allied lives. America and Britain were completely depleted. They couldn’t have gone on fighting Japan for months on end.
Bollotti
Winger
they had perfected air to air refueling. watch the clip.
err, so what?
I'm not denyingthe existence of A2A refuelling (Flight Refuelling Ltd had been pioneering it for the previous 10 years) - the issue with using the Lancaster, or the Lincoln, or any other 1945 allied bomber (with the exception of the silverplate B29) was that they could'nt
1. fly fast enough after the bomb was dropped to escape the blast zone
or
2. fly high enough to drop the bomb to give them a longer time to escape the blast zone
or
3. a combination of 1&2
the silverplates dropped the bomb from over 30000ft, a Lanc carrying the same load would have struggled to get above 20000ft and would also be flying about 75mph slower
Using anything other than a silverplate would have been 'we need volunteers for a suicide mission that will end the war'
Football Dinosaur
Winger
Could easily have just lest them to rot. They had no natural resourses. All oil imported. They'd have been back in the stone age within a year and eating eachother within 2.If's and but's now. My post was more about the horroe of the bomb and ensuring we don't use it again. Although the Japanese were horrendous during the war did civilians really deserve to be vaporised. Would we have done this to the Germans?
We didint need to carry on fighting. They'd retreated ot their home islands, had no air force and no navy to speak of. Just needed to quaranteen the home islands and starve them out imo. All accademic not point of thread was to show that 75 years and although close not used in anger since WW2 ended. Still a real threat and as more powerful, see hydrogen bomb tested by soviets, we seem as a species to have stepped back from the brink.
Last edited:
Lankester Merrin
Striker
I hear a lot of Westerners talk like that about the Emperor, but hardly any Japanese. In fact I have never heard a Japanese person use those terms
Japanese troops fought to the death defending Okinawa, but that was their last stand. They had run out of pretty much everything from then on, soldiers, ammunition, fuel.
Some of the Japanese military would have tried some kind of Ueno style last stand, but it would have taken the US hours not days to overcome them.
There was nothing left to mount a defence with.
There were a few crazies but not enough to have caused series opposition to a US invasion
Far Tibetan Mountain
Striker
Tbh, there is no definitive answer to the question. Something that supports the argument that the japanese would just have carried on fighting is the perceverence of the japanese hold outs on pacific islands who carried on fighting for decades after the war. They were still being shot by local police, surrendering or being arrested well into the 1970s I believe.
Edit: Indeed the last one was repatriated in 1974!
Final straggler: the Japanese soldier who outlasted Hiroo Onoda
The idea of a fanatical Japanese soldier, unaware the war is over, fighting on for decades in the jungles of some remote Pacific island is so familiar it has become a cliché. But Teruo Nakamura, th…
mikedashhistory.com
Last edited:
citybythesea
Winger
Absolutely abhorrent things are nuclear weapons. In an ideal world no-one should have them. Beyond our ridiculous idea of our own mass destruction, the environmental costs of them are immense. The natural world is outside the geopolitical arena and all the cock-waving who’s got the biggest nukes. Even a small scale conflict eg between India and Pakistan could have the potential to kill many millions more through starvation as crops fails.
If they were ever used again, I’d have one wish.....mankind were the only ones made extinct because we’d deserve it for developing them in the first place.
As for Japan, could they not have demonstrated a warning detonation first? Blew up an uninhabited island instead of vapouring tens of thousands of innocent civilians?
If they were ever used again, I’d have one wish.....mankind were the only ones made extinct because we’d deserve it for developing them in the first place.
As for Japan, could they not have demonstrated a warning detonation first? Blew up an uninhabited island instead of vapouring tens of thousands of innocent civilians?
Last edited:
Jon Dough
Winger
The Japanese holding out in the PI weren't being shot by the local police, the Japanese were actually shooting/robbing local farmers.
Deleted User 11453
Striker
You advocate possible mass starvation and cannibalism but was it ‘better’ that a relatively smaller number of civilians were killed and injured by the atomic bombs?
Football Dinosaur
Winger
Didn't advocate it merely stated we didn't have to invade. They'd have given up or at least been no threat. It doesn't matter now as all history but must not be forgotten.
The Last Flanelled F
Subs Bench
Starve them out?
How many lives would that have cost?
Bear in mind that the military ruled Japan at the time. Hirohito was a mere figurehead, there is no way they would have surrendered without dropping the bomb.
The allies would bave had to invade eventually with the inherent friendly casualties that act would have created. The lads who would have had to do the fighting on mainland Japan where in favour of the bombs being dropped!
They would not have given up!
