6th & 9th August

[aka Calum Da Jazbo]

Anniversaries of Hiroshima and Nagasaki

August was a fateful month in the 20th Century

[aka Calum Da Jazbo]

Graun

[aka Calum Da Jazbo]

thoughtful & illuminating piece by Noam Chomsky

[Serial_Apologist]

Graun

This was still up there illuminating the cloud base as I made my way home last evening. I wonder for how long - there was no mention of it on the Beeb.

[aka Calum Da Jazbo]

This was still up there illuminating the cloud base as I made my way home last evening. I wonder for how long - there was no mention of it on the Beeb.

follow the graun link

[aka Calum Da Jazbo]

.. we went to see Spectra in Victoria Tower Gardens last night .... it is a magnificent installation; the soft electronic sounds at the base of the light column add mystery to an imposing memorial ... actually one of the best light installations i have ever seen .... please go if you can, it is a most fitting reminder of the lights of civilisation fragility and ethereal vitality

my experience of the installation against the context of the history [World Wars, Nuclear Attacks &c], and the current states of affairs in the Middle East and Africa &c, haunts me and the people who were there judging by their silences and stillnesses .....

it will end on the 11th August; i urge you to experience it up close before then


we also visited the Tower of London to see the poppy field; another wonderful inspiration and well worth the visit ... see them in evening daylight and then catch the river bus to Westminster for the Spectra Memorial ...

[Hornspieler]

The nuclear bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki ended the War and saved tens of millions of lives on both sides.

Including that of my uncle - a six foot tall sergeant who, when released from a Japanese Prisoner of War Camp after four years in captivity, weighed just under 6½ stone.

Wars cost lives. The atom bomb not only saved lives, it saved hundreds of years of Japanese culture and civilisation for the future of mankind.

HS

[Roehre]

The nuclear bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki ended the War and saved tens of millions of lives on both sides.

Including that of my uncle - a six foot tall sergeant who, when released from a Japanese Prisoner of War Camp after four years in captivity, weighed just under 6½ stone.

Wars cost lives. The atom bomb not only saved lives, it saved hundreds of years of Japanese culture and civilisation for the future of mankind.

HS

[Pabmusic]

I suppose there's little doubt the two nuclear devices ended the war. But there are some politics to consider.

It was expected that the Soviet Union would enter the war very soon. (She declared war on Japan on 9th August.) It was known that Germany had already sent nuclear technology and expertise to Japan before the capture of U-234 in May 1945, carrying a Messerschmidt jet fighter and much uranium, and that she'd been supplying the same for some time. The Japanese nuclear plant was in Korea, then a Japanese territory.

So I can see how Truman might have been easily persuaded that it was a good idea to end the war before Russia became too involved.

In the event, of course, the Russians captured the Korean nuclear plant and thus obtained her own way in to the nuclear race.

And as for my own father (who didn't have to endure the appalling treatment endured by Hornspieler's father) he was training to be sent out to the Far East when war ended. The point being that he was a RN Commando with Combined Operations. He'd already lived through the Normandy campaign, but whether he could have survived a second campaign… In which case Pabmusic would never have existed.

[doversoul1]

The nuclear bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki ended the War and saved tens of millions of lives on both sides.

Including that of my uncle - a six foot tall sergeant who, when released from a Japanese Prisoner of War Camp after four years in captivity, weighed just under 6½ stone.

Wars cost lives. The atom bomb not only saved lives, it saved hundreds of years of Japanese culture and civilisation for the future of mankind.

HS

I see your point but is it an appropriate way of describing this historical event?

[aka Calum Da Jazbo]

indeed Hornspieler no one can ignore the context of those attacks and their consequences for good as well as ill .... but then we should remember the bad consequences, the deaths of Japanese men women and children who were sacrificed to end the war ...

it is also reminds us that we should be careful of our methods when in the right no? lest those in the wrong claim their use is legitimate - a terrifying prospect these days ... and in 1962 i would not have given a fig for your family members if the USSR had nuked the largest USA airfield - the UK

the 20C began with such a mass slaughter and continued so to kill millions ...


history is complex and jumping and shouting about such matters leads to great difficulties; what i find important about the Spectra installation is that, whilst intended to mark WW1, its gentle and ethereal nature inpsired reflection on the aftermath of slaughter in the century as a whole and especially the events in August 1945 as well ...

and the great threat to our present fragile civilisation that the 20C has endowed us with .....

[pilamenon]

Once learning what happened to Japanese civilians as a result of these attacks, they seem to me an indefensible act. The timing is suspicious, as Pabmusic suggests, and there were alternatives, including a combined US-USSR onslaught to speed up the surrender. Japan was already on its knees. The POWs had already suffered too much. Innocent children lived with terrible consequences for a generation as a result of America's political calculations. Who knows how the Cold War might have developed differently had the US worked with the USSR over this?

That's not to say that the Americans might have taken a different course, just that the course they did take is for me morally the wrong one at that time.

[greenilex]

I must say I agree with Chomsky, and keep both anniversaries each year as best I can. On Tuesday we had the Mayor of Southampton introduce a speaker from national CND before paper boats containing lighted candles were launched on the Itchen. Today the pink knitted scarf will be stretched between Aldermaston and Burghfield. "Salus populi suprema est lex".

[richardfinegold]

Once learning what happened to Japanese civilians as a result of these attacks, they seem to me an indefensible act. The timing is suspicious, as Pabmusic suggests, and there were alternatives, including a combined US-USSR onslaught to speed up the surrender. Japan was already on its knees. The POWs had already suffered too much. Innocent children lived with terrible consequences for a generation as a result of America's political calculations. Who knows how the Cold War might have developed differently had the US worked with the USSR over this?

That's not to say that the Americans might have taken a different course, just that the course they did take is for me morally the wrong one at that time.

The Japanese were not on their knees. They were fighting a defensive war at that point but were a very capable, not to mention fanatical, enemy. The casualties of Iwo Jima and Okinawa would have been trivial compared to those of an assault
on the mainland.
The Japanese regime deserves all the blame. They waged aggressive war, treated all their enemies horribly, and made virtually no provision to defend their civilian population against inevitable reprisals. More civilians died in the incendiary attacks on Tokyo waged with "conventional" weapons (perfected by Bomber Harris of the RAF against the Germans, and then imitated by American General Curtis LeMay) than in the 2 Atom Bomb attacks combined. Dropping the A Bomb no doubt spared Japanese Civilians from further Incendiary Attacks and saved Japanese lives in the process.

[Roehre]

The Japanese were not on their knees. They were fighting a defensive war at that point but were a very capable, not to mention fanatical, enemy. The casualties of Iwo Jima and Okinawa would have been trivial compared to those of an assault
on the mainland.
The Japanese regime deserves all the blame. They waged aggressive war, treated all their enemies horribly, and made virtually no provision to defend their civilian population against inevitable reprisals. More civilians died in the incendiary attacks on Tokyo waged with "conventional" weapons (perfected by Bomber Harris of the RAF against the Germans, and then imitated by American General Curtis LeMay) than in the 2 Atom Bomb attacks combined. Dropping the A Bomb no doubt spared Japanese Civilians from further Incendiary Attacks and saved Japanese lives in the process.

[though the needless attack on Dresden makes Bomber Harris a war criminal, whose statue should be removed, as it IMO dishonours the remembrance of all those thousands in Bomber Command who made the supreme sacrifice and who had to wait 6 decades before getting the honours they deserve]