August 07, 2013

"Thank God For The Atom Bomb" [ArthurK]
— Open Blogger

Slightly Late. Sorry, this is Ace. I didn't post this yesterday on the actual Hiroshima anniversary. But the Nation's Robert Scheer is once again writing the same column he's written 1000 times before, that Hiroshima represents the largest-scale terrorist attack in history. (No link; again, same crap he writes all the time.) So I wanted to make sure this got up. Now I'll turn you over to @comradearthur/ArthurK.

...

(reposting from the last 2 years, slightly updated)

Hiroshima and Nagasaki were nuked 68 years ago. 32 years ago Paul Fussell wrote this important essay, 'Thank God for the Atom Bomb'.

21 year old 2nd Lt. Fussell commanded infantry in WWII France. Later, he had to sit around waiting to invade Japan and die. That was the general expectation of the vets of the European theater - they didn't think they'd survive Japan.

Then Aug 6th happened.

When the atom bombs were dropped and news began to circulate that "Operation Olympic" would not, after all, be necessary, when we learned to our astonishment that we would not be obliged in a few months to rush up the beaches near Tokyo assault-firing while being machine-gunned, mortared, and shelled, for all the practiced phlegm of our tough facades we broke down and cried with relief and joy. We were going to live. We were going to grow to adulthood after all.

The point of this post is to entice you click on the above link and read the essay. These excerpts give you a sense of the essay but don't include every example and argument. That's why you should Read The Whole Thing.


... writing on the forty-second anniversary of the atom-bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, I want to consider something suggested by the long debate about the ethics, if any, of that ghastly affair. Namely, the importance of experience, sheer, vulgar experience, in influencing, if not determining, one's views about that use of the atom bomb.

The experience I'm talking about is having to come to grips, face to face, with an enemy who designs your death. The experience is common to those in the marines and the infantry and even the line navy, to those, in short, who fought the Second World War mindful always that their mission was, as they were repeatedly assured, "to close with the enemy and destroy him." Destroy, notice: not hurt, frighten, drive away, or capture.

...

Arthur T. Hadley said recently that those for whom the use of the A-bomb was "wrong" seem to be implying "that it would have been better to allow thousands on thousands of American and Japanese infantrymen to die in honest hand-to-hand combat on the beaches than to drop those two bombs." People holding such views, he notes, "do not come from the ranks of society that produce infantrymen or pilots." And there's an eloquence problem: most of those with firsthand experience of the war at its worst were not elaborately educated people. Relatively inarticulate, most have remained silent about what they know. That is, few of those destined to be blown to pieces if the main Japanese islands had been invaded went on to become our most effective men of letters or impressive ethical theorists or professors of contemporary history or of international law. The testimony of experience has tended to come from rough diamonds - James Jones is an example - who went through the war as enlisted men in the infantry or the Marine Corps.

Anticipating objections from those without such experience in his book, WWII, Jones carefully prepares for his chapter on the A-bombs by detailing the plans already in motion for the infantry assaults on the home islands of Kyushu (thirteen divisions scheduled to land in November 1945) and ultimately Honshu (sixteen divisions scheduled for March 1946). Planners of the invasion assumed that it would require a full year, to November 1946, for the Japanese to be sufficiently worn down by land-combat attrition to surrender. By that time, one million American casualties was the expected price.

Former Pfc. E. B. Sledge, author of the splendid memoir With the Old Breed at Peleliu and Okinawa, noticed at the time that the fighting grew "more vicious the closer we got to Japan," with the carnage of Iwo Jima and Okinawa worse than what had gone before. He points out that



what we had experienced [my emphasis] in fighting the Japs (pardon the expression) on Peleliu and Okinawa caused us to formulate some very definite opinions that the invasion. . . would be a ghastly bloodletting. . . . It would shock the American public and the world. [Every Japanese] soldier, civilian, woman, and child would fight to the death with whatever weapons they had, rifle, grenade, or bamboo spear.



The Japanese pre-invasion patriotic song, "One Hundred Million Souls for the Emperor," says Sledge, "meant just that." Universal national kamikaze was the point.

Ref the initial invasion of Kyushu. We now know that it would have been worse than planned. The strength of the entrenched Japanese Army was double what we expected. And the Allied invasion plans included isolating the invasion beaches using 17 atom bombs and chemical warfare against nearby Japanese cities - since the civilians were going to be participating in the defense.

Although American planners estimated that the Japanese had about 7,000 aircraft ready to defend the Home Islands against the Allied invasion scheduled for November of 1945, the actual figure was 12,700, for which there was an enormous stockpile of fuel and more than 18,000 pilots, who, while mostly indifferently trained, would be available for suicide missions.

On the other hand, John Kenneth Galbraith is persuaded that the Japanese would have surrendered surely by November without an invasion. He thinks the A-bombs were unnecessary and unjustified because the war was ending any way. The A-bombs meant, he says, "a difference, at most, of two or three weeks." But at the time, with no indication that surrender was on the way, the kamikazes were sinking American vessels, the Indianapolis was sunk (880 men killed), and Allied casualties were running to over 7,000 per week. "Two or three weeks," says Galbraith. Two weeks more means 14,000 more killed and wounded, three weeks more, 21,000. Those weeks mean the world if you're one of those thousands or related to one of them. During the time between the dropping of the Nagasaki bomb on August 9 and the actual surrender on the fifteenth, the war pursued its accustomed course: on the twelfth of August eight captured American fliers were executed (heads chopped off); the fifty-first United States submarine, Bonefish, was sunk (all aboard drowned); the destroyer Callaghan went down, the seventieth to be sunk, and the Destroyer Escort Underhill was lost. That's a bit 'of what happened in six days of the two or three weeks posited by Galbraith. What did he do in the war? He worked in the Office of Price Administration in Washington. I don't demand that he experience having his ass shot off. I merely note that he didn't.

Likewise, the historian Michael Sherry, author of a recent book on the rise of the American bombing mystique, The Creation of Armageddon, argues that we didn't delay long enough between the test explosion in New Mexico and the mortal explosions in Japan. More delay would have made possible deeper moral considerations and perhaps laudable second thoughts and restraint. "The risks of delaying the bomb's use," he says, "would have been small - not the thousands of casualties expected of invasion but only a few days or weeks of relatively routine operations." While the mass murders represented by these "relatively routine operations" were enacting, Michael Sherry was safe at home. Indeed, when the bombs were dropped he was going on eight months old, in danger only of falling out of his pram. In speaking thus of Galbraith and Sherry, I'm aware of the offensive implications ad hominem. But what's at stake in an infantry assault is so entirely unthinkable to those without the experience of one, or several, or many, even if they possess very wide-ranging imaginations and warm sympathies, that experience is crucial in this case.

And it wasn't just the military taking casualties as the war continued.

During the closing phase of the Pacific War, average monthly deaths, military and civilian, in Japanese held-territories in China, southeast Asia, Indonesia, and the Philippines, from disease, starvation, atrocities, or combat, was about 400,000 men, women, and children.

400,000 for August 1945, 400,000 for September 1945, 400,000 for October 1945...

A remoteness from experience like Galbraith's and Sherry's, and a similar rationalistic abstraction from actuality, seem to motivate the reaction of an anonymous reviewer of William Manchester's Goodbye Darkness: A Memoir if the Pacific War for The New York Review of Books. The reviewer naturally dislikes Manchester's still terming the enemy Nips or Japs, but what really shakes him (her?) is this passage of Manchester's:



After Biak the enemy withdrew to deep caverns. Rooting them out became a bloody business which reached its ultimate horrors in the last months of the war. You think of the lives which would have been lost in an invasion of Japan's home islands - a staggering number of Americans but millions more of Japanese - and you thank God for the atomic bomb.



Thank God for the atom bomb. From this, "one recoils," says the reviewer. One does, doesn't one?

...

In the summer of 1945 Field Marshal Terauchi issued a significant order: at the moment the Allies invaded the main islands, all prisoners were to be killed by the prison-camp commanders.

...

And in explanation of "the two bombs," Alsop adds: "The true, climactic, and successful effort of the Japanese peace advocates. . . did not begin in deadly earnest until after the 'second bomb had destroyed Nagasaki. The Nagasaki bomb was thus the trigger to all the developments that led to peace." At this time the army was so unready for surrender that most looked forward to the forthcoming invasion as an indispensable opportunity to show their mettle, enthusiastically agreeing with the army spokesman who reasoned early in 1945, "Since the retreat from Guadalcanal, the Army has had little opportunity to engage the enemy in land battles. But when we meet in Japan proper, our Army will demonstrate its invincible superiority."

Most people don't appreciate that, despite how badly the rest of the Japanese military had been mauled by 1945, their Army was mostly intact. Something like 3 or 4 million men were in the home islands or China. It wouldn't have been easy to transfer large numbers from China to Japan but all the ones that made it would have fought to the death.

It is easy to forget, or not to know, what Japan was like before it was first destroyed, and then humiliated, tamed, and constitutionalized by the West. "Implacable, treacherous, barbaric" - those were Admiral Halsey's characterizations of the enemy, and at the time few facing the Japanese would deny that they fit to a T. One remembers the captured American airmen - the lucky ones who escaped decapitation - locked for years in packing crates. One remembers the gleeful use of bayonets on civilians, on nurses and the wounded, in Hong Kong and Singapore. Anyone who actually fought in the Pacific recalls the Japanese routinely firing on medics, killing the wounded (torturing them first, if possible), ... The degree to which Americans register shock and extraordinary shame about the Hiroshima bomb correlates closely with lack of information about the Pacific war.

(Regarding a book by Glenn Gray that argued against the bombings.)

"The combat soldier," he says,
knew better than did Americans at home what those bombs meant in suffering and injustice. The man of conscience realized intuitively that the vast majority of Japanese in both cities were no more, if no less, guilty of the war than were his own parents, sisters, or brother


I find this canting nonsense. The purpose of the bombs was not to "punish" people but to stop the war. To intensify the shame Gray insists we feel, he seems willing to fiddle the facts. The Hiroshima bomb, he says, was dropped "without any warning." But actually, two days before, 720,000 leaflets were dropped on the city urging everyone to get out and indicating that the place was going to be (as the Potsdam Declaration has promised) obliterated. Of course few left.

...

The future scholar-critic who writes The History of Canting in the Twentieth Century will find much to study and interpret in the utterances of those who dilate on the special wickedness of the A-bomb-droppers. He will realize that such utterance can perform for the speaker a valuable double function. First, it can display the fineness of his moral weave. And second, by implication it can also inform the audience that during the war he was not socially so unfortunate as to find himself down there with the ground forces, where he might have had to compromise the purity and clarity of his moral system by the experience of weighing his own life against someone else's. Down there, which is where the other people were, is the place where coarse self-interest is the rule. When the young soldier with the wild eyes comes at you, firing, do you shoot him in the foot, hoping he'll be hurt badly enough to drop or mis-aim the gun with which he's going to kill you, or do you shoot him in the chest (or, if you're a prime shot, in the head) and make certain that you and not he will be the survivor of that mortal moment?

Keep Fussell's essay in mind when you hear people sigh in dismay about the bad thing America did on August 6th and 9th 68 years ago.


Posted by: Open Blogger at 11:35 AM | Comments (162)
Post contains 2305 words, total size 15 kb.

1 If war is bad, isn't stopping it early good? Is that too much math?

Posted by: t-bird at August 07, 2013 11:36 AM (FcR7P)

2 My F-I-L was sitting on a LST off Japan waiting for the go. Marched through Nagasaki a few months after the bomb. He will be 87 this year. Never say "we shouldn't have dropped the bomb' around him. He is likely alive because we did.

Posted by: AZ Hi Desert (All my Hate cannot be found) at August 07, 2013 11:38 AM (pZGxe)

3 Let's do the time warp again! That applies both to the article and to this post. *obligatory toddlerfisting re: time machine* Now that that's out of the way, people who cannot distinguish between acts of war and acts of terrorism don't even deserve a pat on the head and a juicebox.

Posted by: alexthechick - Welcome mighty SMODlets! at August 07, 2013 11:38 AM (VtjlW)

4 Waffle Is Not the Answer

Posted by: wtfl at August 07, 2013 11:39 AM (tgvJj)

5 Nevergiveup isn't around, so I'll tell you for him.

His dad was on Iwo Jima when they dropped the bombs.

Anyone care to guess what the odds for his survival would have been had we invaded Japan?

Thank God for Little Boy and Fat Man.

Posted by: CharlieBrown'sDildo at August 07, 2013 11:40 AM (gqgiP)

6 My grandpa was in the 34th ID, one of the first divisions to occupy Japan, and scheduled to be one of the first in if the bomb hadn't dropped. I don't have much doubt in my mind that if the bomb hadn't been dropped, I wouldn't be typing this.

Posted by: Jollyroger at August 07, 2013 11:41 AM (t06LC)

7 Jacob DeShazer, one of the captured Doolittle Raiders, was told in 1943 that all prisoners of Japan would be killed.

Yep those who detest the atomic bombings are all for even more death via actual combat, via disease, or just via starvation.  Just to make their guilt for being on the winning side feel a bit lighter.

Posted by: Anna Puma (+SmuD) at August 07, 2013 11:41 AM (CzPap)

8

>>>>If war is bad, isn't stopping it early good? Is that too much math?

 

As Fussell put it [IIRC] "If war is a sin, then all soldiers are sinners and no one is more acutely aware of that fact, nor more interested in the cessation of war, than a soldier"

Posted by: Bigby's Accusing Finger at August 07, 2013 11:41 AM (3ZtZW)

9 I think it was one of the Morons who mentioned this - had we not been the first to the atom bomb, it would have become merely another tool of war used en masse by now.

Posted by: steveegg at August 07, 2013 11:41 AM (o44nj)

10 What's with the timestamp?

Posted by: shredded chi at August 07, 2013 11:42 AM (z7jvd)

11 Waffle Is Not the Answer

Depends on the question.

Posted by: HeatherRadish™ needs a beer at August 07, 2013 11:42 AM (/kI1Q)

12

If war is bad, isn't stopping it early good? Is that too much math?

 

Posted by: t-bird at August 07, 2013 03:36 PM (FcR7P)

 

The lieberals are interested in stopping war early if it means America's defeat.

Posted by: steveegg at August 07, 2013 11:42 AM (o44nj)

13

"With The Old Breed" is an excellent book.  Highly recommend.

Posted by: Empire of Jeff at August 07, 2013 11:43 AM (CJjw5)

14 It's quite simple.  Everything we did was wrong.  Everything right would have been done by those who live in fantasy land.

Posted by: WalrusRex at August 07, 2013 11:43 AM (XUKZU)

15 My great-uncles had been on Guadalcanal. One got a bad case of malaria. With mounting casualties, Dr Patton would have slapped him out of bed and back to the line.

Posted by: fluffy at August 07, 2013 11:44 AM (zBjWY)

16

[]Waffle Is Not the Answer

 

Depends on the question.

 

Posted by: HeatherRadish™ needs a beer at August 07, 2013 03:42 PM (/kI1Q)

 

We're always the answer.

Posted by: Waffle House at August 07, 2013 11:44 AM (o44nj)

17

Posted by: CharlieBrown'sDildo at August 07, 2013 03:40 PM (gqgiP)

 

People tend to forget about thinks like the Kamikazes when discussing the bombs.

My grandfather's (god rest his soul) ship was hit by one, luckily still in port, so he survived to tell a much embellished story (ironically, it did sink, while they were pulling it to dry dock, and he lost all his personal items.)

 

A horrific thing when you think about it, a army so committed they wouldn't even "live to fight another day."  Strategy had largely gone out the window.

 

I'm sort of an "every now and then proportionalist." There are simply unwinnable ethical situations where there are no good outcomes, only "the least bad."  This was clearly one of those situations.

War is a complicated thing.  Hardly a place to start enforcing black and white ethical rules built entirely in theory and never put into practice.

Posted by: tsrblke at August 07, 2013 11:45 AM (GaqMa)

18 the hives -- declare guerre nucleaire


http://tinyurl.com/kl8uh9v

Posted by: phreshone at August 07, 2013 11:45 AM (Pr6hk)

19 Any questions regarding how the Japanese would respond to a land invasion of the home islands is answered by the Rape of Nanking. This is where I mention someone screeching at me about how I was lying about the Rape of Nanking. She point blank refused to believe that any such thing ever happened and I was just being a racisty lying racist.

Posted by: alexthechick - Welcome mighty SMODlets! at August 07, 2013 11:45 AM (VtjlW)

20 So I'm channel-surfing and there's TFG right now greeting the Marines at Camp Pendleton.

Most tepid "welcome" to a CiC ever!

Ooh-rah!

Posted by: Jane D'oh at August 07, 2013 11:45 AM (lVPtV)

21 Your grandfather and my father-in-law were in the same division. My F-i-L was a red leg.

Posted by: AZ Hi Desert (All my Hate cannot be found) at August 07, 2013 11:45 AM (pZGxe)

Posted by: AZ Hi Desert (All my Hate cannot be found) at August 07, 2013 11:46 AM (pZGxe)

23 Those who distort the facts that make up the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki are of the same type who try to deny that the Holocaust happened.

They have a political agenda to push, hence they are liars and deceivers.

Posted by: Anna Puma (+SmuD) at August 07, 2013 11:46 AM (CzPap)

24 My late father was in the 1st Marines and served in the South Pacific, including Peleliu. He always said there would have been a million US casualties if they had invaded Japan and that he was alive due to the bomb. He was grateful to be alive, came back to the US and became a great husband, father, grandfather and successful businessman. I am incredibly lucky and grateful to be his daughter and I miss him every day.

Thanks to these men you are not either speaking Japanese or German. Never, ever forget. Thank you for this post.

Posted by: ChristyBlinky, Scandalous Redneck Queen and train detective at August 07, 2013 11:46 AM (baL2B)

25

TOM COTTON IS RUNNING FOR SENATE BITCHES!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

 

Hope you morans have been well.  

 

 

Tom Cotton will be President one day.  And the bookend Reagan revolution will be complete.

Posted by: Prescient11 at August 07, 2013 11:46 AM (tVTLU)

26 Yesterday, one of the Horde (maddog?) pointed out that this action saved Japan as a nation. Got your ears on, Sir?

Posted by: fluffy at August 07, 2013 11:47 AM (zBjWY)

27 14 "With The Old Breed" is an excellent book. Highly recommend.

Posted by: Empire of Jeff at August 07, 2013 03:43 PM (CJjw5)



Yes. 

Posted by: Jane D'oh at August 07, 2013 11:47 AM (lVPtV)

28 Fussell, BTW, is pretty much an old style Liberal [meaning not reflexively anti-USA] and also very much the Pessimist. Superb writer.

Posted by: Bigby's Accusing Finger at August 07, 2013 11:47 AM (3ZtZW)

29 TY ATC, you nailed it.

Posted by: Gmac-Pondering the coming implosion at August 07, 2013 11:48 AM (4pjhs)

30 Dropping the bombs most likely saved my grandfather's life.  My other grandfather wasn't so lucky and was killed in Europe.


In "oh my day just keeps getting awesomer" news, our water heater has gone kaput.  Some scam artist of a plumber wanted to sell us a new unit for $1100...for the unit alone.  Screw that.

Posted by: DangerGirl, full of sweet rage at August 07, 2013 11:48 AM (GrtrJ)

31 Once you catch someone in a lie, then everything after that is suspect. Once you catch someone who claims to be educated, or an expert, in a mistake, then everything after that has to be verified.

Why do we waste our time on this people?

Posted by: Desperation at August 07, 2013 11:48 AM (YuWcM)

32 Posted by: ChristyBlinky, Scandalous Redneck Queen and train detective at August 07, 2013 03:46 PM (baL2B)



TFG is speaking to the 1st Marines at Pendleton right now.  As I said up-thread, received the most tepid welcome ever.

Posted by: Jane D'oh at August 07, 2013 11:48 AM (lVPtV)

33 The atom bomb has been the greatest guarantor of peace in history ( that may change in Islamofascist hands). Compare the 2 nd half of the 20th century to the first half in number of and scope of wars fought and people killed. All thanks to MAD and nukes. Anyone who doesn't recognize this is a drooling idiot.

Posted by: Weirddave at August 07, 2013 11:48 AM (aH+zP)

34 A guy who worked for my Dad was a draftsman and was on the staff at MacAuthur's headquarters.  His job was to design and lay out graveyards for American soldiers.  He shuddered to think of large these designs were.  They were meant to bury  tens of thouands of men

Posted by: Dan in Michigan at August 07, 2013 11:49 AM (2yD4G)

35 Zombie Curtis LeMay '16!

Posted by: Idaho Spudboy at August 07, 2013 11:49 AM (evvGi)

36

>>>>Waffle Is Not the Answer

 

German LuftWaffles bombed the f**k out of Belgium, which is why the Waffle is all Belgians are known for, really. And fruity, faggy beer.

Posted by: Bigby's Accusing Finger at August 07, 2013 11:49 AM (3ZtZW)

37 Red Leg! Artillery, hoowah.

Posted by: Lincolntf at August 07, 2013 11:49 AM (ZshNr)

38 Bill Whittle's brutal takedown of John Stewart regarding the atomic bomb.  http://tinyurl.com/bsfwfuu

Posted by: AndrewsDad at August 07, 2013 11:50 AM (C2//T)

39 >>> This is where I mention someone screeching at me about how I was lying about the Rape of Nanking I remember a few years back this event was "re-discovered." I read a little WWII history from time to time and was shocked it had been forgotten.

Posted by: fluffy at August 07, 2013 11:50 AM (zBjWY)

40 DangerGirl - If it is gas, check with the gas company, or electric utility for electric. They often make pretty good deals.

Posted by: No way I'm Putting my Name on This, Bexause not-PC at August 07, 2013 11:51 AM (aDwsi)

41 Scheer was so annoying, the LA Times got rid of him. now he's at something called TruthDig, which is about neither.

Posted by: john smallberry at August 07, 2013 11:51 AM (Jsiw/)

42 and 'waffle' with egg and sausage, probably cheese too, now at Taco Bell! It's what's for breakfast.

mmmmmm....waffles.

Posted by: Desperation at August 07, 2013 11:51 AM (YuWcM)

43 I think President Obama should get rid of all our Nuclear Weapons and that way the rest of the world will follow. The world respects our President of Color and not that idiot Bush that killed many persons of some color in the Middle east.

Posted by: Laquisha Largess at August 07, 2013 11:51 AM (HlUFk)

44 TFG is speaking to the 1st Marines at Pendleton right now. As I said up-thread, received the most tepid welcome ever.


Someone in the thread below said TFG said, "Hello Camp Lejurne!"

Haha!  Is that true?

Posted by: EC at August 07, 2013 11:51 AM (GQ8sn)

45

Ace slept through the 10,000    comment post on this yesterday.

I repeat what I said then:  Given that the Japanese routinely raped, used chemical weapons on and perpetrated vivisection on Chinese civilians, and Japan routinely raped and killed Chinese, Philipino,   American, British, and Dutch civilians, and given that Japanese routinely machine gunned merchant marines in lifeboats, and given that the Japanese routinely starved, tortured and cannibalised American POWs, I often wonder if only two atomic bombs were retribution enough.

Posted by: Vashta Nerada at August 07, 2013 11:52 AM (mSAq8)

46 I remember a few years back this event was "re-discovered." I read a little WWII history from time to time and was shocked it had been forgotten. Posted by: fluffy
------
There are many books documenting the horror of Japanese atrocities. They simply regarded all non-Japs as inferior barbarians.

Posted by: No way I'm Putting my Name on This, Bexause not-PC at August 07, 2013 11:53 AM (aDwsi)

47 Posted by: Vashta Nerada at August 07, 2013 03:52 PM (mSAq Read this comment when you wrote it yesterday. I like it just as much today.

Posted by: Oldsailors Poet at August 07, 2013 11:53 AM (XIxXP)

48 Some scam artist of a plumber wanted to sell us a new unit for $1100...for the unit alone. Generally going for half that at OSH. No complaints with mine, but there are better ones available, too.

Posted by: t-bird at August 07, 2013 11:53 AM (FcR7P)

49 Someone in the thread below said TFG said, "Hello Camp Lejurne!"

Haha! Is that true?

Posted by: EC at August 07, 2013 03:51 PM (GQ8sn)




Wouldn't surprise me.  Probably thinks Camp Pendleton is on the Gulf.



The Marines behind him don't look thrilled to be there.  (I'm watching MSDNC.)

Posted by: Jane D'oh at August 07, 2013 11:53 AM (lVPtV)

50 Just for the record, the sooner a war is won, the better for everyone, even the loser.  Give me a weapon that can win a war in two weeks versus six months,    and   I'll use it for purely humanitarian reasons.

Posted by: Vashta Nerada at August 07, 2013 11:54 AM (mSAq8)

51 As I posted yesterday, it saved my Dad, a Marine staged in the South China Sea for the invasion.  They told them the casualties would be so high that they would be stepping over walls of bodies.

Posted by: Sherry McEvil, Stiletto Corsettes C'est Magnifique at August 07, 2013 11:54 AM (kXoT0)

52 Try Wake Island 1943.  The Japanese garrison still had on the islands American civilian contractors they had captured in December 1941.  These contractors had been on the islands to fortify them when war broke out.  The commandant ordered all of the American civilians gathered up on a beach bound.  And he ordered his troops to kill the civilians.  The Japanese commandant after the war was executed for his crimes.

She screeched at you AlextheChick?  Sorry to hear that.  But what is 300k Chinese dead to her conscience - for example the old woman who was raped by Japanese soldiers before they bayoneted her.  Talk about a War on Women.  The old woman managed to make it to the international area where American missionaries and Oscar Rabe, a Siemens employee and NAZI, treated and protected refugees.

Posted by: Anna Puma (+SmuD) at August 07, 2013 11:54 AM (CzPap)

53 Ace slept through the 10,000 comment post on this yesterday.
I repeat what I said then: Given that the Japanese routinely raped, used chemical weapons on and perpetrated vivisection on Chinese civilians, and Japan routinely raped and killed Chinese, Philipino, American, British, and Dutch civilians, and given that Japanese routinely machine gunned merchant marines in lifeboats, and given that the Japanese routinely starved, tortured and cannibalised American POWs, I often wonder if only two atomic bombs were retribution enough.

Posted by: Vashta Nerada at August 07, 2013 03:52 PM (mSAq



Yes, at one time Japan was the most feared nation in the Eastern hemisphere.  They were steamrolling everyone across Asia and the south pacific.


Now?



http://youtu.be/ZjAXJaFydwM


Posted by: EC at August 07, 2013 11:54 AM (GQ8sn)

54

Zombie Curtis LeMay '16!

 

Posted by: Idaho Spudboy at August 07, 2013 03:49 PM (evvGi)

 

I guarantee a Grand Tour.

Posted by: Zombie Curtis LeMay at August 07, 2013 11:54 AM (o44nj)

55 There are many books documenting the horror of Japanese atrocities. They simply regarded all non-Japs as inferior barbarians. Posted by: No way I'm Putting my Name on This, Bexause not-PC at August 07, 2013 03:53 PM (aDwsi) Much like the Chinese who see Americans as troublesome disposable mutts.

Posted by: Oldsailors Poet at August 07, 2013 11:54 AM (XIxXP)

56 Would learning to speak Japanese have really been that bad?

Posted by: Robert Scheer at August 07, 2013 11:54 AM (5fSr7)

57 16 My great-uncles had been on Guadalcanal. One got a bad case of malaria. With mounting casualties, Dr Patton would have slapped him out of bed and back to the line.

Posted by: fluffy at August 07, 2013 03:44 PM (zBjWY)


Daddy got malaria. Was sent to a hospital, fed, medicated, and sent back to the front lines. His tales of horror also included eating pickled eggs sent from my grandmother, along with cookies and other food items they were thrilled to receive. He also told of the rations of what served as orange juice to prevent scurvy. He said that most Marines did not drink the stuff but cleaned their helmets with it to prevent rust. On an island in the South Pacific he claimed the people of the island bleached their hair with the oj (somewhere off the coast of Australia, a country he thought was beautiful). His favorite story was of a merchant marine ship. For unknown reasons he ate with the officers and escaped the food poisoning that resulted in hundreds of Marines hanging their hindquarters off the ship if the toilets on board were occupied. He was above deck with the officers during the floor show.

Posted by: ChristyBlinky, Scandalous Redneck Queen and train detective at August 07, 2013 11:54 AM (baL2B)

58 OMG.  Just said we "have to take threats to our embassies seriously."

Fucking fuck.

Posted by: Jane D'oh at August 07, 2013 11:54 AM (lVPtV)

59 Anyone    who wants to understand just how evil the Japanese empire was in those days, pick up a copy of "Knights of Bushido".

Posted by: Vashta Nerada at August 07, 2013 11:55 AM (mSAq8)

60 Posted by: Jane D'oh at August 07, 2013 03:54 PM (lVPtV) Those dead bodies must have tipped him off.

Posted by: Oldsailors Poet at August 07, 2013 11:56 AM (XIxXP)

61 He shuddered to think of large these designs were. They were meant to bury tens of thouands of men

Posted by: Dan in Michigan at August 07, 2013 03:49 PM (2yD4G)

Up through the Gulf War, they were still using up the body bags ordered for the invasion of Japan.

Posted by: Sherry McEvil, Stiletto Corsettes C'est Magnifique at August 07, 2013 11:56 AM (kXoT0)

62

Galbraith's loved one is held hostage.  Police advise they will do nothing and allow the perp to  abuse  the hostage for a few more weeks whereas  the perp  will  soon  tire of her  and  surrender.

 

Sounds like a plan. 

Posted by: Gorilla who aspires at August 07, 2013 11:56 AM (m2CN7)

63 The Marines behind him don't look thrilled to be there.
-------------------

That's because he looks on them as corpses.

Posted by: Mike Hammer at August 07, 2013 11:56 AM (aDwsi)

64 Hey, TFG.  Those Marines standing behind you?  They're called "men."  Something you'll never be.

Posted by: Jane D'oh at August 07, 2013 11:56 AM (lVPtV)

65

Thank God for Little Boy and Fat Man!

 

In "oh my day just keeps getting awesomer" news, our water heater has gone kaput. Some scam artist of a plumber wanted to sell us a new unit for $1100...for the unit alone. Screw that.

 

Danger-  I had to by one on Sat.  720.00 installed on Mon.  Although it was on sale at Lowes.  EPA makes you put all this other shit on them now for 'safety.'  Then Mon. Morning I had water leaking thru the ceiling from the swamp cooler.  It never f'n ends.

 

  *spit*

Posted by: Infidel at August 07, 2013 11:56 AM (O/fK8)

66

OMG. Just said we "have to take threats to our embassies seriously."

 

Fucking fuck.

 

Posted by: Jane D'oh at August 07, 2013 03:54 PM (lVPtV)

 

NOW he does that.

Posted by: Zombie Ambassador Stevens at August 07, 2013 11:57 AM (o44nj)

67 Give me a weapon that can win a war in two weeks versus six months, and I'll use it for purely humanitarian reasons. Making Saudi Arabia the world's largest exporter of glass...

Posted by: t-bird at August 07, 2013 11:57 AM (FcR7P)

68 I remember a few years back this event was "re-discovered." I read a little WWII history from time to time and was shocked it had been forgotten. Posted by: fluffy at August 07, 2013 03:50 PM (zBjWY) I heard about that "rediscovery" as well and was stunned. It was probably the greatest known war horror prior to WWII. The Marines behind him don't look thrilled to be there. (I'm watching MSDNC.) Posted by: Jane D'oh at August 07, 2013 03:53 PM (lVPtV) I wonder if we've moved from being on stage with the President being a great honor to "That's it Smitty! I've had it with your shit! You're going up on that platform and see how you like it!"

Posted by: alexthechick - Welcome mighty SMODlets! at August 07, 2013 11:58 AM (VtjlW)

69 TFG:  "Budgets will be tighter, and that's only natural."

Claims in the past "we hollowed out our military, left them unprepared."

Jeebus H. 


Posted by: Jane D'oh at August 07, 2013 11:58 AM (lVPtV)

70 45 Someone in the thread below said TFG said, "Hello Camp Lejurne!" Haha! Is that true? Posted by: EC at August 07, 2013 03:51 PM (GQ8sn) Yep, I just heard the clip on Hannity. Probably a typo on the teleprompter.

Posted by: rickl at August 07, 2013 11:58 AM (zoehZ)

71 How many peoples of yellow color were killed by the US order Nuclear attack on Japan by a Republican President.

Posted by: Laquisha Largess at August 07, 2013 11:58 AM (R8X+X)

72 I know I post some variation of this every time this subject comes up, but if anybody tells you the bombings were unnecessary or inhumane, show them this photo: http://tinyurl.com/lgytx6v

That's what we would have been up against. Anybody and everybody, including schoolgirls, armed with whatever weapons were available to them, making human wave attacks against invading forces in the name of the Emperor. Of course, they all would have been killed, and a lot more of ours would have died, and I don't know why being nuked is any worse than being cut to pieces by machine gun fire or shell fragments.

Posted by: ol_dirty_/b/tard at August 07, 2013 11:58 AM (KSjsb)

73 Are y'all kidding me that Baroque did not even know the name of the Marine base?

Posted by: ChristyBlinky, Scandalous Redneck Queen and train detective at August 07, 2013 11:59 AM (baL2B)

74 Yep, I just heard the clip on Hannity.

Probably a typo on the teleprompter.

Posted by: rickl at August 07, 2013 03:58 PM (zoehZ)



But he's at Camp Pendleton!

Posted by: EC at August 07, 2013 11:59 AM (GQ8sn)

75 Point / Counterpoint! No, this isn't an SNL skit. This guy really thinks this shit: washingtonexaminer ANALYSIS It was wrong to bomb Hiroshima and Nagasaki Ending a war is a good thing. Killing civilians a bad thing. Deliberately targeting civilians is murder, and is never morally licit, even in pursuit of a good thing such as ending a war. The tens of thousands of Japanese non-combatants we killed 68 years ago this week with two nuclear bombs were not “collateral damage” of military strikes. They were the intended targets.

Posted by: UWP at August 07, 2013 11:59 AM (r98SZ)

76 The history of the Pacific theater gets seriously glossed over in schools. From my recollection of high school history, it was pretty much Hitler, the Holocaust, we nuked Japan, then onto the Cold War. And college history was pretty much the Depression, FDR, and then McCarthyism, with a war in between. People come out of school with no idea of how bad the Japanese were...it's just "oh we used nukes we must be bad."

Posted by: brak at August 07, 2013 11:59 AM (iEoiA)

77 Japan wouldn't have thought twice about using the bomb.

Posted by: Hanoverfist at August 07, 2013 11:59 AM (6LWkb)

78 NOW he does that. Posted by: Zombie Ambassador Stevens
---------------------

He's talking about videos, Stevens, so STFU.

Posted by: Mike Hammer at August 07, 2013 12:00 PM (aDwsi)

79

Claims in the past "we hollowed out our military, left them unprepared."

 

Jeebus H.

 

Posted by: Jane D'oh at August 07, 2013 03:58 PM (lVPtV)

 

I'm not going to make the mistake S(l)ick Willie did - I'm going to kill our military.

Posted by: Teh SCOAMT at August 07, 2013 12:00 PM (o44nj)

80 71 45
Someone in the thread below said TFG said, "Hello Camp Lejurne!"

Haha! Is that true?

Posted by: EC at August 07, 2013 03:51 PM (GQ8sn)

Yep, I just heard the clip on Hannity.

Probably a typo on the teleprompter.

Posted by: rickl at August 07, 2013 03:58 PM (zoehZ)


Unreal.

Posted by: ChristyBlinky, Scandalous Redneck Queen and train detective at August 07, 2013 12:00 PM (baL2B)

81 *rage ramping up to dangerous levels*

Now he's telling the Marines "we need to be the world's leader in science."

"Make sure Washington gets up and does their jobs."

*reaches for sharp object to stick in ear drum*

Posted by: Jane D'oh at August 07, 2013 12:00 PM (lVPtV)

82 Anyone misplace their shark on the NYC subway?

http://wnyw.images.worldnow.com/images/2707140_G.jpg

Posted by: Purp[/i][/b][/u][/s] at August 07, 2013 12:00 PM (di+Lf)

83 He mentioned "Camp Lejerne". I don't think he thought he was there.

Posted by: rickl at August 07, 2013 12:00 PM (zoehZ)

84

My dad's unit had just finished the messy mopping up in the  Phillipines when orders  came down  for them to start  training for the Japan invasion.

 

He said  all of them knew they would never see home again if they invaded.  And yes, many of them, including my dad, cried when they dropped those bombs and Japan surrendered.

Posted by: Soona at August 07, 2013 12:01 PM (Wc55c)

85 When I was young, I thought Hiroshima/Nagasaki was horrible and we shd not have dropped them. Then I grew up. The deaths of several hundred civilians is better than the deaths of millions of civilians. If we had invaded, millions would have died. If we had not invaded, millions of civilians wd still have died because they were starving. There were also the civilians that the Japanese Army was continuing to kill and starve throughout Asia. A quick end to the war saved lives and lefties can stuff it.

Posted by: Waldo at August 07, 2013 12:01 PM (tCBZk)

86 I should clarify that it was the greatest known war horror of the 20th century prior to WWII. That it has been forgotten at all is troubling.

Posted by: alexthechick - Welcome mighty SMODlets! at August 07, 2013 12:01 PM (VtjlW)

87 He mentioned "Camp Lejerne". I don't think he thought he was there.


I'm going to wait for confirmation.

Posted by: EC at August 07, 2013 12:01 PM (GQ8sn)

88 This F********ing computer crashes two, three times a day. Some [expletive] driver has a effing bug .

done with it.

Posted by: Desperation at August 07, 2013 12:03 PM (YuWcM)

89 I guess nobody's up for sushi tonight?

Posted by: Dr. Varno at August 07, 2013 12:03 PM (bYRF2)

90 Critics who cry we targeting  civilians forget to mention that we provided a warning for all civilians to leave the city.  

Posted by: Gorilla who aspires at August 07, 2013 12:03 PM (m2CN7)

91 My thinking on the use of atomic bombs over Japan has always been this:


They started it. We finished it.

And that's how you win wars- not end them, but WIN them. You crush the enemy totally. His cities, his industry, his people, his spirit.

Posted by: Jones in CO at August 07, 2013 12:04 PM (8sCoq)

92 New thread up and I was first...she skips away.

Posted by: Sherry McEvil, Stiletto Corsettes C'est Magnifique at August 07, 2013 12:04 PM (kXoT0)

93

Probably a typo on the teleprompter.

Posted by: rickl at August 07, 2013 03:58 PM (zoehZ)

 

Unreal.

Posted by: ChristyBlinky, Scandalous Redneck Queen and train detective at August 07, 2013 04:00 PM (baL2B)

 

 

-------------------------------------------

 

 

Sorry not buying the typo shit.  This has been done way too often for it to be a mistake.  It's purposeful.   Dear Leader and his regime are laughing at our military.

 

 

 

Posted by: Soona at August 07, 2013 12:04 PM (Wc55c)

94

My dad (RIP) was in Tacoma, Washington waiting to ship out for the invasion.  My mom was back home in Tennessee waiting to give birth to my big brother.   They married quickly at Fort Knox in January of 1945 because Dad had completed his medical training and was expecting to be shipped to one of the fronts at any time.   He was Jewish and badly wanted to go to Germany and help finish off Hitler, but the windup of the European theater went better than expected in terms of casualties (thank you AAC bombers and fighters!) and they did not need him there. 

 

His unit was told to expect 80% casualties and he personally was told not to expect to come home.  The Japs did not honor the Red Cross and used the medics' helmets for target practice.   My mom has told me it was a terrible time, they were deeply in love but she had resigned herself to losing him.  She went out and ran around the streets of her little hometown, 7 months pregnant, when the surrender was announced. 

 

The people who thnk we should not have dropped the Bombs also spent the next 50 years expecting us to do it again, and we didn't. 

Posted by: rockmom at August 07, 2013 12:05 PM (Q4elb)

95 Recalls the essay I referenced a few months ago. Can't remember the author, but it reminded me of a teacher I once had. He liked to discuss alternate history stuff and one of his big things was whether, given an alternate reality, Americans would have been as likely to drop a nuke on Germany or Italy or France if it would've served a military purpose. Or was it the "different ness" of the Japanese that made it comtemplatable in the first place. He was not against the Japan nukes, just liked people to look at the cultural influences that play roles in big things, often invisibly.

Posted by: Lincolntf at August 07, 2013 12:05 PM (ZshNr)

96 10th Mountain Division ( 110th Mountain Signal Company ) .  Father.  Not going to Japan, 1945


Thank God and the Army Air Force for the atom bombs

Posted by: Tim from Timbuktu at August 07, 2013 12:05 PM (omBWL)

97 Dumbass...you have to start at nursing 101 to go to nursing school. Idiot. He is making this stuff up as he goes (big surprise, I know).

Posted by: ChristyBlinky, Scandalous Redneck Queen and train detective at August 07, 2013 12:05 PM (baL2B)

98 I can't take any more of this jackass speaking to these Marines.

Fuck him sideways with a barbed wire wrapped pineapple. 

Posted by: Jane D'oh at August 07, 2013 12:06 PM (lVPtV)

99 39 Bill Whittle's brutal takedown of John Stewart regarding the atomic bomb. http://tinyurl.com/bsfwfuu Posted by: AndrewsDad at August 07, 2013 03:50 PM (C2//T) ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ THIS Epic, simple, and powerful. Absolute kryptonite to the idiot leftists who claim stupid shit like Stewart and Scheer

Posted by: deadrody at August 07, 2013 12:06 PM (osIoP)

100 They started the war, with a sneak attack at that.  I'm just all busted up about dropping the bad bomb on them.

Monday Morning Douchebagging.  Fuck 'em.

Posted by: Tex Lovera at August 07, 2013 12:06 PM (wtvvX)

101 Dear Ol' Dad had fought his way across Europe from D-Day +11 until the Surrender...winding up in Czechoslovakia.  Blowing shit up from a Tank Destroyer. 

After a short occupation, his unit was packed up and sent to the Pacific.  The war ended while they were in transit.  They all expected to die in Japan...especially after fighting the NAZIs for nearly a year.  His war stories were horrible enough.

Every neighbor I had growing up was a combat vet.  Tough f*uckers, every one.

They all loved that bomb.


Posted by: Trainer's looking to join a Militia. at August 07, 2013 12:06 PM (7EbAY)

102 If we had invaded, not only would   eight hundred    thousand to a million American soldiers have died, but Japan would have ceased to exist. 

Posted by: Vashta Nerada at August 07, 2013 12:06 PM (mSAq8)

103 In the city of Hiroshima before August 6th, 1945.  It was the army HQ for the expected invasion.  In the river that made that ran through Hiroshima bobbed suicide boats for the invasion.  In the factories women in mompeis labored at building weapons of war.  Children were being taught how to use sharpened wooden spears for the invasion.

Then a B-29 Superfortress flew over the city and changed everything just 1,800ft above and near the Aoi bridge.  A Japanese officer exercising his horse vanished while the remains of his horse was found pressed into a crack in the road.  What we now know as the Hiroshima memorial, an American bomber crew was being held there by the secret police.  No one knows if the crew survived the attack or were killed in retaliation.

Posted by: Anna Puma (+SmuD) at August 07, 2013 12:06 PM (CzPap)

104 Probably a typo on the teleprompter. I gave him the French pronunciation.

Posted by: Jean Francois Kerry at August 07, 2013 12:06 PM (FcR7P)

105 Make that: The deaths of several hundred thousands of civilians...

Posted by: Waldo at August 07, 2013 12:07 PM (tCBZk)

106 Damn him for polluting the Marines. Cannot listen.

Posted by: ChristyBlinky, Scandalous Redneck Queen and train detective at August 07, 2013 12:07 PM (baL2B)

107 also, people who decry the atomic bombings seldom mention the firebombings of Japanese cities, which often killed more people and destroyed more property.

For example, on 10 March 1945, B-29s dropped incendiaries on Tokyo and killed approx 100,000 people in a firestorm

Posted by: Jones in CO at August 07, 2013 12:08 PM (8sCoq)

108

I can't take any more of this jackass speaking to these Marines.

 

Fuck him sideways with a barbed wire treble-hook wrapped rotating pineapple.

 

Posted by: Jane D'oh at August 07, 2013 04:06 PM (lVPtV)

 

ReWrite™ engaged for maximum pain.

Posted by: steveegg at August 07, 2013 12:08 PM (o44nj)

109 107 Damn him for polluting the Marines. Cannot listen.

Posted by: ChristyBlinky, Scandalous Redneck Queen and train detective at August 07, 2013 04:07 PM (baL2B)




Same here.  Just a couple of more months and he'll no longer be my son's CiC. 

Posted by: Jane D'oh at August 07, 2013 12:08 PM (lVPtV)

110 How many peoples of yellow color were killed by the US order Nuclear attack on Japan Bless your heart. It's so precious that you think I actually care how many were.

Posted by: rickb223 at August 07, 2013 12:08 PM (pHivF)

111

>>>Deliberately targeting civilians is murder, and is never morally licit, even in pursuit of a good thing such as ending a war.

 

Lefties are so ignorant of everything.

 

Targetting civilians was regarded as illegal during a very short period in the Victorian era, ending with Sherman's March. It was made possible by the development of early gunpowder weapons - short range, unwieldy, needful of constant upkeep and slow to reload and the establishment of forts designed to counter those. It made wars into set-pieces that could be viewed from afar whilst at picnic.

Posted by: Bigby's Accusing Finger at August 07, 2013 12:09 PM (3ZtZW)

112 Generally anti-war films just piss me off because they are in actuality anti-American films in disguise. That being said, there is one truly great anti-war film, and that is Fires on the Plain, and part of what makes it great is that it's a JAPANESE anti-war film, and if any nation needed a good therapy session after WWII to get their heads screwed on right again, it was the Japanese. Anyway, if you EVER have a chance to see this film, do so. It concern a squad of Japanese soldiers in the Philippines who suddenly and (to them) inexplicably find themselves cut off and surrounded by American troops. The Japanese were so confused because their commanders had been lying to them all along that they were winning the war handily and that the Americans would never return. Then they learn that they're not just cut off -- they're the only surviving squad in the whole district. And then they start to starve to death and begin cannibalizing each other's corpses. And at the culmination they realize that the entire war had been not just a farce, but a lie, and that they were the bad guys after all -- once they see that the Americans are not sadistic monsters. In the end, the anti-hero purposely allows the Filipino rebels to kill him. It's very sad, but you also think that he made the right decision, morally. Fires on the Plain. See it.

Posted by: zombie at August 07, 2013 12:11 PM (+cx5n)

113 Good grief.  He's finished speaking, and he's getting polite applause.  Turns around and waves with that sissy wave of his at the Marines directly behind him.  God forbid he should shake a hand or two.  Or hug like Bush did.

Fucking fucking fuck. 

Posted by: Jane D'oh at August 07, 2013 12:11 PM (lVPtV)

114 The tens of thousands of Japanese non-combatants we killed 68 years ago this week with two nuclear bombs were not “collateral damage” of military strikes. They were the intended targets. Posted by: UWP at August 07, 2013 03:59 PM (r98SZ) For fuck's sake. Of course they were intended targets, we were at war. When you are at war, there is not one single thing in enemy territory that is off limits as a target. That is why war is so horrific. This concept that oh those are civilians and non-combatants and you can't kill them would have been completely unknown to prior generations. Now, is it better not to hit those areas? Sure. That's the entire point of MAD. If you bomb London, we fire bomb Dresden (I know, I know factories but shhh I'm on a roll). If you suicide bomb our ships and eviscerate and cannibalize our POWs, we will wipe entire cities of yours off the map. I wonder how many people think we bombed Hiroshima and Nagasaki within minutes of each other, not days. Hell, that says what Japan's response would have been. The United States used the most horrific weapon ever made and the Japanese did not surrender until we used it again. I have no patience for the boo hoo hoo that was so wrong crowd. None.

Posted by: alexthechick - Welcome mighty SMODlets! at August 07, 2013 12:11 PM (VtjlW)

115 LeMay's fire bombing of Japan was far worse than the atomic weapons.  Far worse than what happened to Dresden because there was so much wood used in the buildings of Japan.  That Tokyo attack burnt out square miles of the city, killed all those thousands of Japanese, displaced even more, almost reached the Imperial Palace, and Texas Army National Guard infantryman and POW Frank Fujita watched it all burn from his vantage point and cheered it on.

Posted by: Anna Puma (+SmuD) at August 07, 2013 12:11 PM (CzPap)

116 There is a great docudrama titled, wait for it, Hiroshima: http://goo.gl/dAAK6 It was a televised miniseries. Suzuki was a real character and he use to mock the Japanese generals and get away with it because of his age and status. Worth a rental.

Posted by: Waldo at August 07, 2013 12:12 PM (tCBZk)

117

Robert Scheer's folks as noted at Wikipedia, which also gives all of his commie background as well:  "His mother, Ida Kuran, was a Russian Jew, and his father, Frederick Scheer was a Protestant native of Germany."  Scheer was born in 1936 in the Bronx, so his family was lucky enough to get out of Germany before the possibility of his mother being murdered entered his life's equation.  

I've just spent 15 minutes looking for Scheer's e-mail address, but of course he's too much of a pussy to publish it.  Had I found it, I think I would have asked him simply whether dropping an atomic bomb on Berlin in 1940 would have been a crime, since it would have killed about 800,000 people, but also considering that the bombing would have saved the lives of about 30 million Germans and Eastern Europeans, including most of his Mother's Jewish relatives. 

He's too dishonest of a commie rat bastard who has drunk the Koolaid on every single issue to recognize the equivalence of the scenario I just spun above and that of the Pacific War and Hiroshima/Nagasaki.  Of course he's discounted any argument that our bombings saved lives or stopped the war earlier than it otherwise would have ended.

 

Suffice it to say that Scheer is a fuckhead and his opinion on anything is worthless.  I'll stick with Fussell and Sledge and my grandfather who fought in Europe and would have died in the invasion of Japan. 

Posted by: Sharkman at August 07, 2013 12:13 PM (5mRmR)

118 Just like his blathering bullshit about giving children "breathalyzers" for asthma in the emergency department, and rogue doctors taking tonsils to get rich, his "ideas" are both stale and full of holes like his flatworm brain.

For many, many years there has been a shorter path to becoming a RN if you are a LPN or an EMT. This is nothing new...like his "universal preschool" idea which is also known as Head Start since 1965.

I listened to less than three minutes of his speechifying blather and cut it off. Please do let me know if he ever says anything important that I need to know (like a bomb from Cuba is heading for Florida). pfft

Posted by: ChristyBlinky, Scandalous Redneck Queen and train detective at August 07, 2013 12:13 PM (baL2B)

119 zombie there is just a tiny problem with that film.  It makes the average Japanese soldier guiltless.

Posted by: Anna Puma (+SmuD) at August 07, 2013 12:13 PM (CzPap)

120 my F-i-L was on the Showboat (BB-55) and he too had no illusions about what the rest of the war would have brought.

as a signalman, he was right out there in the open, and to this day suffers PTSD from the kamikazes.

nuking the nips was the right thing to do and F anyone who says otherwise.

Posted by: redc1c4 at August 07, 2013 12:14 PM (q+fqH)

121 Oppenheimer (1980) is also a great mini series. There is one scene where General Grove is talking about how great America is. All the commie scientists are laughing behind his back but it brought tears to my eyes.

Posted by: Waldo at August 07, 2013 12:15 PM (tCBZk)

122 I have no patience for the boo hoo hoo that was so wrong crowd. None.

Posted by: alexthechick - Welcome mighty SMODlets! at August 07, 2013 04:11 PM (VtjlW)


I have no patience, either. Our soldiers and Marines were trained to hate the enemy, which, if I am not mistaken, is the point of war: to kill the enemy before they come to our country and kill us. I am sure Daddy made peace with whatever he had to, as you could not meet a more gentle and kind man, but it was WAR, not selling Girl Scout Cookies or tree-hugging after Pearl Harbor. This is like the peaceful religion crap. No patience for Sharia, either.

Posted by: ChristyBlinky, Scandalous Redneck Queen and train detective at August 07, 2013 12:17 PM (baL2B)

123 Operation Downfall (from Wikipedia) Casualty predictions varied widely but were extremely high for both sides: depending on the degree to which Japanese civilians resisted the invasion, estimates ran into the millions for Allied casualties[1] and several times that number for total Japanese casualties.[citation needed]

Posted by: UWP at August 07, 2013 12:18 PM (r98SZ)

124 Dammit I hate when I comment then get pulled away and there's a new thread when I come back. 

Anyway, thanks for the couple of recs re: water heater.  Gonna put the husband on the job.

Posted by: DangerGirl, full of sweet rage at August 07, 2013 12:20 PM (GrtrJ)

125 Never forget--the United States got attacked by the Empire of Japan because we imposed economic sanctions on her because of her attacks on third nations.

That's it--you can slice and dice it any way you care to, spin it however you want to, but that is the reason--because we imposed sanctions on her. Economic sanctions. Not because we said "if you invade Britain's colonies we are going to declare war on you." But because we said we will no longer support your aggression by shipping you oil and scrap iron. 

For that, our boys got slaughtered on a Sunday morning. Because we were not going to be a party to helping someone invade other countries.

If the intelligentsia want to argue WWII, then there is no reason to give the intelligentsia any more credit on much of anything, and no reason to follow leaders elected via the intelligentsia's control of institutions.

Posted by: Mr. Happy-Ounce of Prevention, Pound of Cure at August 07, 2013 12:20 PM (Unw5+)

126 114 Good grief. He's finished speaking, and he's getting polite applause. Turns around and waves with that sissy wave of his at the Marines directly behind him. God forbid he should shake a hand or two. Or hug like Bush did.

Fucking fucking fuck.

Posted by: Jane D'oh at August 07, 2013 04:11 PM (lVPtV)


He probably knows those warriors would crush his delicate paw with a handshake. He needs it for his iReggie.

Posted by: ChristyBlinky, Scandalous Redneck Queen and train detective at August 07, 2013 12:20 PM (baL2B)

127 Another fun fact regarding the proposed invasion of Kyushu.  It called for the dropping of many atomic bombs, far more than was dropped in reality.

Posted by: Anna Puma (+SmuD) at August 07, 2013 12:21 PM (CzPap)

128
In "oh my day just keeps getting awesomer" news, our water heater has gone kaput. Some scam artist of a plumber wanted to sell us a new unit for $1100...for the unit alone. Screw that.

They're cheaper than that, and not hard to install. When my last water heater went out, my landlord had a new one that he'd purchased at a damaged/dinged sale for 75 dollars. We installed it together in about one hour. It was brand new, and had a crumpled edge on the top where the insulation could be seen. That was the only thing wrong with it, and it works like a champ.

Before we sold our previous house, and moved, our shared heating system/water heater went out, and I got a brand new replacement for 450 bucks. Installed it myself, worked just fine. (Full disclosure: Draining, filling, and bleeding the heating system was a royal pain in the ass though).

Posted by: Sticky Wicket at August 07, 2013 12:22 PM (qoQi/)

129 But Galbraith and Sherry would have gladly sacrificed all of those lives to maintain their moral posture.

Posted by: ejo at August 07, 2013 12:25 PM (GXvSO)

130 Thank GOD for the bomb!  Thankyou for this post!

I would not be alive today if those bombs weren't dropped.  My Grandfather was actually in a staging area near Okinawa awaiting his doom if they had to invade.

Anyone who gets in my face about the bomb has a problem with my existence.  This is true for millions of people.  Keep this in mind when you argue with these people.  They'd rather you not exist so they can feel better about themselves. 

Posted by: Gil Woodchuck at August 07, 2013 12:27 PM (q7xb6)

131 If you are going to spend $1100 on a water heater, its best to go get an on demand water heater. Supposedly they are cheaper to run, although I never noticed a difference. As the only gas appliance in my house, the bill never changed. But you get unlimited hot water. The unit also weighs about 6 nanograms compared to a regular water heater. Hangs on the wall, like a picture.

Posted by: UWP at August 07, 2013 12:28 PM (r98SZ)

132 And waterboarding, to Andrew Sullivan, is worse than the worst of the atrocities committed by the Japanese.

Posted by: ejo at August 07, 2013 12:30 PM (GXvSO)

133 If you are going to spend $1100 on a water heater, its best to go get an on demand water heater.

Those are the tankless water heaters?  They are much more than that.  I think around $2500 to start.

Posted by: EC at August 07, 2013 12:32 PM (GQ8sn)

134 Between greeting the Marines at Camp Pendleton with the wrong base, thinking three Atlantic Southern cities are on the Gulf, and thinking swimming, track and gymnastics are in the Winter Olympics...surely this man would fail a drug test. He is starting to make Ole Joe look Mensa quality.

Posted by: ChristyBlinky, Scandalous Redneck Queen and train detective at August 07, 2013 12:32 PM (baL2B)

135

57 Would learning to speak Japanese have really been that bad?

 

With eight politeness levels? I have a hard time managing clueless American politeness!

Posted by: Anachronda at August 07, 2013 12:35 PM (xGZ+b)

136 Those are the tankless water heaters? They are much more than that. I think around $2500 to start. Posted by: EC at August 07, 2013 04:32 PM (GQ8sn) ---- They must have went up. Mine was about $1100 at Home Depot, 6-8 years ago.

Posted by: UWP at August 07, 2013 12:39 PM (r98SZ)

137 Except for Provoo Anachroda.

Provoo was an American enlisted man on Corregidor. He had been a student of Japanese language and culture before the war. When Corregidor surrendered, out came Provoo in a kimono, speaking Japanese; and within days he was responsible for the killing of an American officer.

 -- pg 315 Prisoners of the Japanese Gavan Daws.

Posted by: Anna Puma (+SmuD) at August 07, 2013 12:40 PM (CzPap)

138 > 62 Up through the Gulf War, they were still using up the body bags ordered for the invasion of Japan. Posted by: Sherry McEvil, Stiletto Corsettes C'est Magnifique They are STILL using Purple Hearts manufactured in anticipation of the Invasion of Japan.

Posted by: Comrade Arthur at August 07, 2013 12:41 PM (5YUSx)

139 I've said this before, but it should be repeated. Had those weapons not been used in anger, some tom fool politician would have thought that using one would be just a fabulous idea. Only to realize a bit late that it really wasn't, when it came back at you in kind. But yes, math is hard: 1 million US casulties 5 or perhaps even 10 times that in Japanese casulties 400,000 per month in Japanese occupied territories all Allied POWs against about 300,000 casulties in both cities

Posted by: I R A Darth Aggie ® at August 07, 2013 12:45 PM (1hM1d)

140

My grandfather fought in WW2 (survived Iwo Jima) and had his assigned street corner in Tokyo awaiting him to guard.  He knew the consequences of going ashore in Japan.  I knew him only because of the bomb.

 

 

Posted by: Foghorn Leghorn at August 07, 2013 12:46 PM (EGPJQ)

141

72 How many peoples of yellow color were killed by the US order Nuclear attack on Japan by a Republican President.

A:  Enough to end a war.   Any follow up questions, dipstick?

 

Posted by: Answerman at August 07, 2013 12:50 PM (EGPJQ)

142

Those are the tankless water heaters? They are much more than that. I think around $2500 to start.

 

Posted by: EC at August 07, 2013 04:32 PM (GQ8sn)

 

Home Depot still has them in the $900-$1400 range.  I think the $2500 is to install them as most of them are outdoor heaters (major plumbing changes required), and the indoor heaters require the installation of (at a minimum) a separate exhaust system (can't use the existing chimney).

Posted by: steveegg at August 07, 2013 12:53 PM (o44nj)

143 Typical Infantry pussies. They'll complain about anything.

Posted by: Dick (@DicksTrash) at August 07, 2013 01:00 PM (GrtrJ)

144

Here is a cruel and horrible calculus, on a topic that is laden with cruelty and horrible numbers:

 

Had the US invaded in late 1945, by July the Soviet Union would have absolutely had troops in Japan (probably sooner).

 

As they did with Eastern Europe, the Soviets would have raped and pillaged their way through this nation.  They would have done to Japan what it did to Nanking - again, and again, and again.

 

This is irrefutable.  Millions of Japanese women would be raped.  Millions of children killed.  Tens of millions left homeless.  Starvation would be the norm.

 

Moreover, once one Soviet Soldier stepped foot into a combat situation, Stalinwould have demanded a slice of the post-war spoils.  Japan, like Korea and Germany and Vietnam, would have been sliced.  This would have lasted as long as it did in Germany - or maybe it would be like the Koreas, and remain divided to this day.

 

Hiroshima was a horrible culmination of a horrible war.  Making the argument that it saved both US and Japanese lives is easy, accurate, and compelling.  Those who oppose it are fools.

 

Extending the argument, as I have, to show just what would have happened - particularly once MacArthur let the Soviets do the heavy killing/dying, as they did in Europe - is simply beyond the liberal's mind. 

 

They have no idea how foolish they really are, and this includes anyone in Japan who thinks that the bomb was the worst way to end the war.

 

Soviet intervention would have destroyed Japan.  The Japan that we know today would simply not exist.  The memories would be twice as bitter as they already are.

Posted by: RobM1981 at August 07, 2013 01:06 PM (oeqMh)

145 Not this again.  My in-laws were Japanese and lived in Hiroshima.  My father-in-law worked at the shipyards, and traded days off with a co-worker.  Even better, he and my mother-in-law were out scavenging firewood when the bomb hit.  Otherwise, no Mrs D.  I won't go into more details, suffice it to say they were good people who suffered greatly for the actions of their country and their government.  They were never less than gracious and accepting of me.  My uncle, a Marine, survived Tarawa and Okinawa, and was on the ships, waiting for the invasion.  He came home, too.  He was never less than gracious toward my wife.       

I'll leave the last word to my mother-in-law "terrible as it was, at least the war was over." 

Posted by: MarkD at August 07, 2013 01:29 PM (06gsL)

146 My father was slated for Olympic.

Posted by: phunctor [/i][/b][/u][/s] at August 07, 2013 01:36 PM (Q7wUg)

147

"They simply regarded all non-Japs as inferior barbarians."

 

Not sure all that much has changed in their attitude, except now they might add, in the case of Americans:

", who are best not fucked with."

Posted by: Ray Van Dune at August 07, 2013 01:37 PM (U+goV)

148

Posted by: RobM1981 at August 07, 2013 05:06 PM (oeqMh)

 

The bloody-heart lieberals and Communists (though I repeat myself) would have accepted all that for the expansion of the Soviet empire.

Posted by: steveegg at August 07, 2013 02:04 PM (o44nj)

149 "120 zombie there is just a tiny problem with that film. It makes the average Japanese soldier guiltless. Posted by: Anna Puma (+SmuD) I don't know about that, exactly. At the end, when he walks out into the Filipino rebels' crossfire on purpose, it seems that in so doing he is acknowledging his guilt for what the Japanese did to the Filipinos throughout the war. It's sort of a "Yep, I see now that I deserve whatever punishment you want to give me" type of moment. A recognition of his own (and by extension the entire Japanese Army's) culpability. Not every reviewer reads it that way, but that's what I understood it to mean. Others see it is as simply his way of refusing to further participate in the insanity of war -- sort of a "no contest" plea in the court of human morality. And even without the final scene, the overall film still a devastating condemnation of the senselessness of an imperialistic war conducted on foreign soil for no reason the soldiers can understand. Better to have an imperfect but still emotionally effective anti-war film directed at Japanese veterans than no anti-war film at all.

Posted by: zombie at August 07, 2013 02:22 PM (+cx5n)

150 During the 1970s there were thousands of tons of chemical weapons in one ton steel containers in the desert in Utah.  There was a lot of activity there to find the leaking containers and destroy the chemicals, mostly mustard gas, in furnaces.  It involved a lot of people spending a lot of time in the desert sun wearing butyl rubber suits which are hot and horrible under the best of circumstances.


According to what I was told, after the way the casualties of Okinawa and the way so many Japanese civilians there chose death rather than suicide, that mustard gas was planned to be used against the Japanese civilians with their bamboo spears.  Soldiers wearing gas masks and protective equipment would be largely immune to chemical weapons but civilian mass levies would be blinded, at least temporarily as well as suffering blisters wherever their skin came in contact with the mustard gas.  Many would suffer permanent damage to their lungs and quite a few would die from it.


With the surrender of Germany the stockpiles of Sarin and Tabun nerve gas were discovered and there was a crash program to produce this more effective chemical as quickly before the invasion.


This should probably be considered in discussions of an invasion of Japan without the atom bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. 

Posted by: Obnoxious A-hole at August 07, 2013 02:23 PM (31Nrp)

151 Fussell speculates that the soldiers--higher-ranking officers, actually--of the time who decried the use of nukes were signaling they were above the common run who would have been in the invasion. Social signaling, so to speak. My grandmother, with her three sons back from combat, said, "I have you all home at last. Thank God for the atomic bomb." They went to pay their respects to the family of a high school friend who'd been killed late in the Pacific War. The mother said, "If we'd had the bomb a month earlier, Arthur would be here with us today." When those generations have gone to their Reward, the way is cleared for the lying sacks.

Posted by: Richard Aubrey at August 07, 2013 02:28 PM (dmbXR)

152

Nothing special about the bomb.  Just a big bomb.  Sure, a list of Japanese cities was spared from any prior attack, so that the "shokku" of a nuking would be maximized - therefore creating maximum leverage to demand surrender.

 

But even that hope for the bomb failed.  From the evidence - which is pretty extensive and conclusive, and directly on point - Hiroshima was used as a lever-point to finally force the end of the war by the "peace faction" (basically, as far anyone who really mattered, just Lord Kido and a sympathetic Emperor).  At the meeting of the Big Six in the imperial bunker on August 9 (when Nagasaki was happening, so it didn't play any role), the military pooh-poohed the atomic bomb, saying it had countermeasures.  And actually, substantively speaking they were correct (that the A-bomb changed little).  Japanese cities had been getting destroyed since March 1945.  Whether they were destroyed by uranium, plutonium, high explosive, or jellied gasoline (napalm) was immaterial. 

 

But the Emperor could hang his surrender hat on this "novel" war technology, and nicely used it in his surrender broadcast, part as implicit excuse, part as subtle dig at American barbarism which was "forcing" him to spare his people further suffering.

 

So we basically lucked out.  The bombs exploded, but did not achieve their objective of *compelling* surrender.

 

In brief, those who treat the A-bombings differently than any other raid on any city in WWII are either stupid, or dishonest.  Bombings are bombings.  There's nothing to argue about, or even discuss.  It is not, remotely, a serious topic.  But that it is considered one is a devastating indictment of the intelligence and logical capacity of many.

 

To praise/add to comments above:

 

*  Japan as a society might well have ceased to exist if the war had dragged on until phase II, Operation Coronet, the invasion of Honshu/Kanto plain/Tokyo area in March 1946.  The ongoing public health disaster would have ripened into a catastrophe (public health crises like that one move in step-functions, not smooth curves) - all of that absent the direct casualties of American/allied action. 

 

* the loss of life in occupied countries would have been far greater - as it was, the daily toll was horrific by 1945 - even six months more of war would have meant multiples of the true combined Hiroshima/Nagasaki death tolls in the occupied countries

 

* didn't know about body bags, but pretty sure we are still using Purple Heart medals struck for the Japanese invasions (last I checked over 100,000 remained) - which in itself is a fascinating fact revealing much about WWII and the subsequent decades of US global military action

 

Posted by: non-purist at August 07, 2013 02:58 PM (afQnV)

153 "150 "120 zombie there is just a tiny problem with that film. It makes the average Japanese soldier guiltless.
Posted by: Anna Puma (+SmuD)

I don't know about that, exactly. At the end, when he walks out into the Filipino rebels' crossfire on purpose, it seems that in so doing he is acknowledging his guilt for what the Japanese did to the Filipinos throughout the war. It's sort of a "Yep, I see now that I deserve whatever punishment you want to give me" type of moment. A recognition of his own (and by extension the entire Japanese Army's) culpability.

Not every reviewer reads it that way, but that's what I understood it to mean.

Others see it is as simply his way of refusing to further participate in the insanity of war -- sort of a "no contest" plea in the court of human morality.

And even without the final scene, the overall film still a devastating condemnation of the senselessness of an imperialistic war conducted on foreign soil for no reason the soldiers can understand. Better to have an imperfect but still emotionally effective anti-war film directed at Japanese veterans than no anti-war film at all.

Posted by: zombie at August 07, 2013 06:22 PM (+cx5n)"



The book, "The Chrysanthemum and the Sword" by Ruth Benedict was an anthropological study of Japanese culture done during WW II and then published in 1946.  One of the points that Ms.Benedict made in the book was that Japanese war movies came across as anti-war movies to non Japanese but for Japanese, the suffering experienced by the soldiers in the movies got them jazzed up to suffer and die for the Emperor.



She explained it as a kind of debt that every Japanese is born with that he can never pay off but that the protagonists in those movies were actually paying off their social debt and getting ahead.  I never really understood it myself but I think it has something to do with the difference with a guilt/virtue based society like ours and a shame/honor based society like Japan - or the Arabs, for that matter.

Posted by: Obnoxious A-hole at August 07, 2013 03:12 PM (31Nrp)

154 @71: Actually, that's how it's pronounced: Lay-jurn. The bastardized pronunciation is "Lee-joon."

Posted by: Manolo at August 07, 2013 03:56 PM (wbHYr)

155 Privates weren't going to be shipped from Europe to the Pacific, but officers and some NCOs were. After V-E Day my father's platoon was in Germany guarding a bakery that was run by POWs. My father's platoon leader, Lt. Armour (of the hot dog family), got his orders for 30 days leave and then on to the Pacific. He sat and cried, saying that he had already won one war and now they were sending him to fight another one. My father felt bad for him, but there was nothing he could do.

Multiply that story by a hundred thousand.

Posted by: Caesar North of the Rubicon at August 07, 2013 03:58 PM (QVC7W)

156 A fantastic read, thanks for posting.

My only quibble is with the Reagan-Bashing at the end. 

I wonder what Fussell thinks of our current Commander In Chief?

Posted by: TXMarko at August 07, 2013 04:37 PM (SnUY2)

157 Fussell died last May. RIP. That part where he described being a 21-year-old rifle PL, later adjudged 40% disabled but at the time perfectly fit for the invasion of Japan, really stuck with me. Glad he lived many more years.

Posted by: JPS at August 07, 2013 06:25 PM (Cao0P)

158 My Father was a medic attached to the 186th Infantry 41st Infantry Division. He would have surely been part of any invasion of the mainland islands of Japan. Thank God for Harry Truman and the Atomic Bomb.

Posted by: Michael J. Bilek at August 07, 2013 07:39 PM (fr/cr)

159

On 6 August 1945, my father's destroyer, U.S.S. Frankford, arrived in Pearl Harbor en route from the ETO to take part in 'Olympic.'  Their invasion-support mission turned to occupation duty on the way across the Pacific.  While in Japan, he got to see some of the stocks of kamikaze hardware and last-ditch weapons hoarded by the Japanese.  He was another 'Thank God for the atom bomb' believer.

 

I thought about posting reflections on the day on Facebook but realized I would be instantly assailed by 'Hiroshima Was Evil!' moralists, most of them half my age or less, none with any combat experience and mostly ignorant of history.

 

Such is the state of the country my father fought for, sixty-eight years on.

Posted by: RNB at August 08, 2013 03:26 AM (fe/Mk)

160

I was eleven years old when WWII ended.  We all at that time had  seen newsreels of the atrocities the Germans and the Japanese committed all during the war.  It took me decades to forgive the Germans but I pretty much never forgave the Japanese.  Their cruelties was horrible.  Do some research and see how bad it was.  These idiots who grieve over the the bomb are either misinformed or terminally stupid.  Find out how our soldiers and sailors were put in hulks with no food or water for the long trips to Japan.  Very few survived.  See how women and children unlucky enough to be within the Japaneses' sphere fared.  See how British soldiers were sodomized and thrown off cliffs.  To this day, I avoid these people.  They may be more civilize than their forebears but  I can't forget what I saw.  They started the war.  We ended it.  And the cruelities of the bomb were as nothing to the cruelties of the Japenese all through the war.

Posted by: BarbaraS at August 08, 2013 09:07 AM (fPChK)

161

I reached adulthood before I realized that my father, who was on a bomber crew training for the invasion, more than likely would have been killed in the next year or so. Even if he had survived, it would have disrupted his personal timeline. He wouldn't have met my mother, and I would not have been born.

So for selfish reasons, I too thank God for the atom bombs.

Posted by: oldtimer at August 08, 2013 10:36 AM (PVpCn)

162

Paul Fussell married after the war.  He came from an interesting background; daddy was a big time corporate lawyer in the biggest law firm in Los Angeles in the 20s and 30's.  Paul was raised with some wealth.

 

He in turn married a lady from a similar background and they had a long and turbulent marriage.  Fussell was on the faculty at either Rutgers or Princeton.

When you read his wife's description of the amount of interfaculty/faculty wives/academic humping that went on (a grasser in the middle of a poison ivy patch led to some interesting explanations about "where'd you get that rash"), you realize you missed out on a lot of nookie by not joining a faculty somewhere.

 

But it's still a good essay; and both husband and wife are more than decent writers. (And both of them were playas on the faculty humping scene).

Posted by: Comanche Voter at August 09, 2013 02:36 AM (bXQnp)

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