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Japanese A-bomb victim's paper cranes eyed for UNESCO heritage list
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122 Comments
Mr Kipling
Go on Japan, keep portraying yourself as the victim....
TokyoLiving
Of course Japan was a victim..
A victim of the biggest war crime in history..
Two atomic evaporated cities full of innocents..
TaiwanIsNotChina
Yeah no. The Nanjing Massacre claimed about the same amount of lives and Auschwitz claimed 5x as many.
Elvis is here
The Nagasaki bombing was definitely not necessary. America is just as guilty as anyone else and blatantly showed a disregard for human life. We should not forget that.
englisc aspyrgend
Is there anything in Japan they aren’t going to try and get a heritage listing for?
No one would have died in either city nor the countless innocent civilians across Asia if Japan hadn’t launched an aggressive, Imperialist war.
David Brent
There are only two groups of people who even know about this UNESCO heritage list:
1) The people who work for UNESCO heritage.
2) Japanese people.
Gene Hennigh
Japan is the only country in the world to have had a super-bomb dropped on them. The US is the only country to drop them. That is nothing for the US to brag about. Few seem to know that the Japanese were ready to surrender but that they wanted to keep the emperor as their head. The US policy was unconditional surrender. General Douglas's first piece of business was to allow the emperor to be the head of Japan. Debate whether the bomb was necessary or not, but there is no argument that the use of the bomb was a wartime extreme. The hundreds of thousands of innocent lives were not collateral damage. It was a cruel incident.
TaiwanIsNotChina
The US cannot be held responsible for proposals that did not reach them unless you have some evidence that they did.
TaiwanIsNotChina
"Admiral Soemu Toyoda, the Chief of the Naval General Staff, argued that even if the United States had made one, they could not have many more."
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Surrender_of_Japan#Japanese_reaction
sir_bentley28
Why is it that you never hear Japan explaining to the kids through storybooks or in the schools what Japan did that lead up to that event? Yes, we all acknowledge that this horrible action happened and ended/evaporated the lives of many innocent people. But remember, Japan, America didn't just spin the globe and put a finger on a country (in this case Japan) and decide "We're bored! Let's blow some shoit up!" Teach them about the real history!
William77
I say let’s put the whole country and it’s nationals as UNESCO and so we can finally be over with this charade.
CaptDingleheimer
Japan wants everything in Japan to be on that list. I'm surprised the recycling bin out in front of Lawson's hasn't been nominated yet. The lengths little countries go to to get noticed. I hope nobody breaks the news to them that 99% of everyone else doesn't know what the hell the UNESCO list is and wouldn't give a crap even if they found out...
Elvis is here
Why should the children be guilted on something they didn't do? After all what is right or wrong depends on the winning side.
General Curtis LeMay, who relayed the Presidential order to drop nuclear bombs on Japan said:
To which former U.S. Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara recalls commented
It would be more worthwhile debating the ethics of conflicts.
JboneInTheZone
Hiroshima was a major manufacturing hub and Nagasaki was a major port, both cities were propping up Imperial Japan’s war effort. They were vital to the Japanese war effort and were justifiably destroyed.
It was completely necessary as it helped end the war quicker while minimizing the amount of dead Americans and Japanese. Estimates state that around 10 million Japanese and 1 million Americans would have died in the event of an invasion. Would you prefer that over the bombs?
You’re conveniently leaving out that Japan also demanded to keep it’s military, that they conduct their own war crime trials on their own military, and no occupation. They had ridiculous terms and the US had every right to deny them.
Alvin
This article is about Japanese war victims, not other countries or imperial Japan.
Elvis is here
Estimates are just that. America had options. It wanted to test its new toys. The first bomb might be justified, the second, bigger and better one in Nagasaki; no.
JboneInTheZone
What do you think estimates are? Just random numbers pulled out of nowhere? Do you have proof the estimations are wrong or are you just making stuff up to prove your point? Even the lowest estimates conclude more people would have died from an invasion than the bombs
What options? Blockade the country and starve out the common folk? Continue firebombing the entirety of the country (which killed more than the nukes themselves)? Wait for the Soviet Union to invade from the north and pillage across the country? What options are better?
Why not? Japanese officials refused to surrender and didn’t think the US had another bomb.
Elvis is here
Indeed. I can't think of anything worse the US has done. Dropping atomic weapons on civilians..,,
TaiwanIsNotChina
Because somebody is going to deceitfully tell them their country was the victim of WW2 and should hold grudges accordingly. Go ahead and tell me that will never happen when we have commentators here that believe that.
TaiwanIsNotChina
But not the worst in the world, as I showed you. Not even the worst between Japan and the US.
JboneInTheZone
Imperial Japan killed more civilians than the U.S. and more civilians would have died if the bombs didn’t force their surrender.
Stephen Chin
No country in the world has the right to use an atomic bomb on another country. And now many countries have thousands of atomic bombs. Let's not call them Nuclear Bombs. Atomic bombs destroyed Hiroshima and Nagasaki. They will destroy the world.
dmhondz
Another one? At this rate, might as well apply for the whole country and all its customs and traditions to the UNESCO Heritage list.
crowbag
ya'll are children lol.
we can recognize atrocities of war without it becoming a contest of who is the worst offender. The atomic bombs were abhorrent AND so were Imperial Japan's actions against other countries. Both can be true simultaneously.
koiwaicoffee
Indeed. Japan's obsession with being on the UNESCO list is a mixture of an inferiority complex and an air of grandeur, both at the same time.
Yrral
Taiwan,this was just the opening act,the US had a total of 12 atomic bomb, ready to drop on Japanese,agreed up by Truman,Stalin and Churchill to drop on Japan
Yrral
Taiwan,why was the atomic bomb not dropped on Germany, because the the US thought less of Japanese as a nationality
Wandora
No. Without crime there is no punishment. It is paradoxical to equate them.
kaimycahl
Can we all just get along? I hope I don't get censored for offending someone here.
JboneInTheZone
The atomic bomb was first tested on July 16th 1945, Germany surrendered on May 7th 1945. Im not sure how you expected the Allies to drop the atomic bomb on Germany when it didn’t exist yet..
Yrral
JB,you cannot make atomic overnight,they had working prototype
JboneInTheZone
No, they didn’t hence the wording FIRST TESTED.
Nguyen Huu Minh
I hope Sadako Sasaki's relatives succeed in making her paper cranes on UNESCO's world heritage. We all need to be reminded of what war can do to people and countries. Most of us are sane but it always take a few insane persons to create havoc and inhuman sufferings to us all. Yet, do not say we, on either side, are not guilty. That's why history must be learned and the truth be talked so we do not allow those few mad persons to repeat the history. Many countries have tried to rewrite history that suits those in power, excluding the truth that their predecessor(s) have done in their own country or in occupied foreign countries. Luckily, most democratic countries like Japan people can help bring out the truth so the world can read and listen to.
Yrral
JB,the Russian would of never gotten,the bomb if not for the Rosenberg,the Russian did not have a working implosion lens until the Rosenberg gave them one Google Rosenberg Implosion Lens
Yrral
Minh,the victor always write history
JboneInTheZone
That has absolutely nothing to do with the first atomic bomb being tested AFTER Germany surrendered and your claim that the Allies had a working prototype…
Eastman
there is one and only country in the world used atomic weapons and killed many civilians.
this we should not never forget.
TaiwanIsNotChina
And we should never forget the context in which it was used, despite some people's attempts to gloss it over.
William Mirrielees
First, any two year,child, being Japanese, Chinese, German, Russian, or English is a victim. They have no say or even able to be pro or against war. So like Anne Frank I think it is a good idea for the UNESCO. About the A bomb, people need to read what happened in the bunke where the Japanese leaders met to decide their countries fate. The A bombs were used to convince one person, the Emperor. It had no impact on the army leaders, they were ready to turn the mainland into another Okinawa. It was only because of the intervention of the Emperor, the tie breaking vote, that Japan accepted the Potsdam Declaration. We had already by that time alluded to the fact that the Japanese people would determine his future. Over 60 million people died in that war. Every country Allied and Axis did some terrible things that we might think horrible in normal circumstances.
GW
I am sick of these BS bits about Japan willing to surrender, their ""terms"" were beyond rediculous!
The US insisting on unconditional surrender was absolutely ON POINT!!! And needed to happen, was the BEST outcome for Japan clearly!! Japan having killed between 20-30million in the Far East & SE Asia was in ZERO position to dictate ANYTHING!!
Burning Bush
Two wrongs don't make a right. As soon as bomb two was dropped, the context shifted making all parties equally guilty . Some could argue Uncle Sam is more guilty because they weren't twisted up in some sort of holy war at the time
No amount of Wiki will alter this.
JboneInTheZone
Please explain how the second bomb wasn’t justified. The US made it very clear that they would deploy another atomic bomb if Japan didn’t surrender and Nagasaki was a military target vital to the Japanese war effort
Burning Bush
Do your own research Mr Bone and make up your own mind.
Marc Lowe
Everyone here is just whining about was crimes and atomic bombs. This article is about a bigger problem; UNESCO. Japan uses money and lobbying to get places and things Japanese classified as heritage. Factories that used Korean slave labor in Japan is now a UNESCO heritage. Now they are trying to make childish paper folding heritage because some idiots use it as a symbol of peace. Cranes are not peaceful. They maim and kill fish that could be eaten by Japanese people. Sometimes they collapse at construction sites and kill workers. This is ridiculous. The G-7 should work on dismantling UNESCO as it is a puppet organization for Japanese tourism and rewriting history favorably for war mongering Japan.
tokyo_m
How about this..... Japan can get its paper cranes on the heritage list the moment the government does the right thing and signs the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons (TPNW)?
MilesTeg
Started a war with a sneak attack, invaded sovereign nations, committed numerous atrocities, killed millions, refused to surrender twice when they had no chance to win, yet they are victims.
Those that push for this useless UNESCO status and the memorial museums don't even mention the millions of foreigners killed by the Japanese military and government by starting a war of aggression. Yet they say their message is one of peace. They don't care if bombs are still dropped today as long as they're not nuclear bombs.
tokyo_m
Indeed. They don't even care if they are nuclear bombs. Thus the refusal to sign up to the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons. Japan claims victim status, but refuses to challenge nuclear weapons.
JboneInTheZone
Again, I don’t see how it wasn’t justified. The US gave Japan 2 options: surrender and you won’t get bombed again, or don’t surrender and get bombed again. Japan chose not to surrender. You don’t get to put the war “on pause” just because you want to
TaiwanIsNotChina
A holy war increases the ridiculousness of Japan's war. And the 15 million dead in China would like a word about your both sidesing this.
HooKnows
This is just utter and complete nonsense, born of total historical ignorance and modern day prejudices and insecurities .
First off, if you knew ANYTHING about which you speak you’d have known that even AFTER the bomb was dropped on Nagasaki the War Cabinet was split on surrender. Hirohito then met with his full cabinet on August 9th 1945, and it TOO was divided.
Baron Hironuma met with Hirohito that night and argued that the emperor’s power should remain and not be reduced to figurehead as initially demanded. the Japanese responded that they “accepted the conditions of the Potsdam declaration under one condition, that “it did not prejudice the prerogatives of his majesty as a sovereign ruler.”
This would give the Emperor the power to prevent the US from demilitarizing and democratizing Japan.
The US response sidestepped the FATE of the Emperor, but made clear he would have no authority. When this US counter proposal reached the Japanese, the war cabinet was AGAIN split for over 3 days. It took Hirohito himself to personally break the deadlock and accept the terms. Then do you know what happened?
After word of the surrender message from the Emperor reached the cabinet ministers, junior officers launched a coup to try and ransack the palace and find the message before it could be sent to the Americans, killing two palace guards in the process. They burned the homes of prime minister Suzuki and baron Hironuma calling them pro American traitors.
It wasn’t until August 15th that the surrender terms were accepted, nearly a week after the second bomb was dropped.
So, no, this fiction that Japan was realistically ready to surrender prior to the second bombing is just that: a fairy tale. It took the Emperor himself to intercede DAYS after the bombing and essentially force the surrender.
Type less, read more.
JboneInTheZone
They're actually completely justifiable. More people would have died from conventional bombing (as shown by the Tokyo firebombings)
More people would have died from an invasion (as verified by both the Japanese and American governments)
Please tell me what other course of action could have been taken to end the war with less loss of life than the atomic bombs.
HooKnows
As for the nonsense that there were other “options”, again, this is like debating with a child. Even the most cursory, elementary knowledge of that war would prevent this sort of silliness from spreading, but suffice it to say that ALL the other realistic “options” to ending that war would have resulted in MANY more casualties and suffering for ALL sides, Civilian, military, and U.S.
A traditional, “D day” style invasion would have cost many hundreds of thousands more lives as the Japanese were planning on enacting “Ketsu-go” (look it up), which would have made combatants of every man woman and child in Japan.
a blockade would have led to the prolonged starving deaths of hundreds of thousands more over the course of many months.
Its sad that one of the great tragedies in world history; the most destructive war mankind has ever known and it’s climax has become some sort of perverse modern geopolitical flashpoint for uneducated and underinformed individuals to spout ahistorical nonsense because they don’t like some country or people or nation state NOW, but that’s not how one should approach history as a thinking adult.
Rodney
Nobody cares that USA nuked these women, children and men. Just folded paper makes it alright.
Elvis is here
I wonder why people get so upset on this topic.
Nothing I've posted is too far from the centre of a balanced argument on the topic... and people react as if they have never heard it before
Could it be the truth is too hot to handle for the indoctrinated?
Yrral
The US had more powerful bombs than Fat Boy and Little Man, Stalin who killed million say a few more, would not make a difference
Yrral
Where Japan fate was sealed Google Potsdam Conference Atomic Bombings
albaleo
@Elvis is here,
I think your quotes from Curtis LeMay and Robert McNamara were in reference to the Tokyo fire bombings. About 100,000 people are thought to have died over two days of bombing. I remember meeting an older Japanese man who experienced that as a child, and he expressed a kind of resentment towards the attention that Hiroshima and Nagasaki received while Tokyo received very little.
TaiwanIsNotChina
Probably not without surrendering large parts of the country to an eventual police state like North Korea. Probably far more casualties domestically in that state than you would have had from the atomic bombings even if there was no war like the Korean war between North and South.
Wandora
Were you testing to see who was reading? :-))
ebisen
Those against the atomic bomb dropping essentially say that either:
1 - America should have either leave Japan its army and emperor (essentially allowing war criminals to walk free).
2 - America should have sacrificed somewhere around 50k to 100k of their own (nevermind ten times more Japanese) lives in order to win the war.
How about a big fat NO? America had the means to stop the war on its own terms with minimal loss of own lives. That the Japanese leaders didn't care about their own people is Japan's problem to deal with. Instead, they're worshipped at Yasukuni as quasi-heroes.
JboneInTheZone
Please explain what other option the US could have taken that would have resulted in less deaths. This comments section is full of people condemning the bombings but I haven’t seen one single alternative presented. The anti-American rooted anti-intellectual historical revisionism in this thread is astounding. I swear you people would claim the sky is red if America made an official statement declaring it blue
JboneInTheZone
Okay then give me another option. What would be a better alternative? Please back up your claim
Gene Hennigh
The US cannot be held responsible for proposals that did not reach them unless you have some evidence that they did.
Read "The Rising Sun: The Decline and Fall of the Japanese Empire 1936 - 1945". Japan clearly signaled the US that surrender was imminent. The fear the US had of having to fight on the Japanese mainland was gone. Still, I guess just to have an opportunity to test the bombs, we dropped them. It is nothing to brag about that the US is still the only country to use super bombs on a foreign country.
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JboneInTheZone
This simply isn’t true. Even AFTER the second bomb the Japanese government was split on whether or not to surrender, with the Emperor himself finally ending the deadlock. Togo himself even admitted that the bombs are what convinced the Emperor to eventually agree to surrender. I’d also like to remind you about the military coup that attempted to stop the surrender from taking place at all, AFTER the second bomb. The idea that Japan was “on the verge of surrender” is just straight up historical revisionism
Elvis is here
A good old fashioned siege.
Dropping atomic weapons twice on civilians is not what gentlemen do.
JboneInTheZone
Both American and Japanese officials estimated that in the event of a siege there would be between 1.7 to 4 million U.S. casualties, including 400-800,000 U.S. dead, and 5 to 10 million Japanese deaths. Estimates place the death toll of the bombs at 200,000. You’re saying that you’d rather see MILLIONS more people die?
Hiroshima and Nagasaki were major manufacturing cities that were largely untouched by conventional bombing. They. Weren’t. Civilian. Targets. They were military targets vital to the Japanese war effort. The US even dropped leaflets telling the citizens to leave and that they would be bombed, it was the Japanese government who strong armed the populace into staying. The Japanese government has the blood of those people on their hands for not only not surrendering, but refusing to allow citizens to flee the city
Elvis is here
Mr Bone has all the answers. You asked for an alternative and you respond with out even a thank you! Oh dear. Not what gentle folk do.
JboneInTheZone
I accept your concession
Elvis is here
If that makes you happy.
TaiwanIsNotChina
Total blockading is also a warcrime by today's standards. Probably would have killed more than the bombings through lack of medicine and malnutrition. And it would have left a North Korea style police state over perhaps all of Japan today.
Elvis is here
Indeed. But better then igniting the power of the sun above a city. Twice.
JboneInTheZone
Starvation is one of the most painful ways to die.
Elvis is here
But not a guaranteed out come. Unlike the horrors a nuke or two can do.
JboneInTheZone
It is though. You’re the one who offered the alternative scenario of a siege. A siege is literally defined as “a military operation in which enemy forces surround a town or building, cutting off essential supplies, with the aim of compelling the surrender of those inside.” How do you expect people not to starve to death when you’ve cut off all supplies?
Elvis is here
Semantics. Like I say... starvation is not a guaranteed outcome.
Plenty fish in the sea, rain falls, seeds grow... let people stew in their own juice... anything but nuclear weapons; if you want the moral high.
But a nuclear bomb or two is all you got? I find it hard to believe anyone thinks that the only option on the table were two bombs. A blatant disregard for human life and just as bad as the aggressors.
JboneInTheZone
Experts predicted deaths by starvation would exceed seven million were Japan to somehow muster the will and resources to wage war through 1946. That’s 37x the amount that died in the bombs. You’re saying you’d rather see 37x more people die in a much more painful way? Is that what you’re saying?
How do you expect commercial fisherman to fish when the island is surrounded and being actively blockaded by the US navy?
There were other options but every single one would have resulted in a greater loss of life.
Elvis is here
indeed
Really? How do you know? I predict four more nukes would have topped that claim. Probably.
Peter Neil
TaiwanIsNotChinaJune 28 08:13 am JST
Few seem to know that the Japanese were ready to surrender but that they wanted to keep the emperor as their head. The US policy was unconditional surrender. General Douglas's first piece of business was to allow the emperor to be the head of Japan.
You can read it in Truman's dairy that he dismissed the surrender, and said wait until they see what's in store for the. He wrote it at Potsdam when received word that the Trinity test was a success.
Come on. It's all there in his own handwriting. Educate yourself.
Elvis is here
You should write fiction.
With all these "predictions" in favour of, it seems the USA really wanted to test their weapons.
Peter Neil
There was never any intention to execute a mainland invasion after the Okinawa invasion. The Japanese were defeated. Truman made up the million casualty number during a speech years after the war when he was still being criticized for using nuclear weapons.
Remember, five out of the six 5-star officers at the time said it was unnecessary, that Japan was defeated and the US only needed to wait offshore. Everyone, including Truman in his own handwriting at Potsdam, said the Japanese would surrender unconditionally when Russia entered the war.
And they did that day.
And the final terms of surrender were exactly the same as the terms the Japanese offered before.
You can live in a bubble of high school history textbooks, or use the incredible wealth of information now available online from first-hand accounts at the time.
You probably never read in your book about the massive demonstrations in Washington DC by the families of service people killed and wounded at Iwo Jima when the news of the assault was released. People were outraged, knowing full well that the island was isolated and blockaded and they could simply go around it.
There was serious talk of court martial of the naval and marine commanders. There was no strategic or useful purpose for the island. After the invasion, the War Department made the narrative that the airfield was of strategic importance for fighter escort of B-29's to mainland Japan. It was a lie.
Only two missions were ever flown because it was impossible for the fighter pilots to withstand the altitude (P-51's were not pressurized like the B-29's) and they did not have the range.
Elvis is here
Kind of like a siege.
The bombs were unnecessary.
TaiwanIsNotChina
Here is my uneducated take: the peace feelers through a third party mention nothing about China and Korea. Given that they were still occupied up until the Soviet Union's entry into the war, one can easily assume that Japan was hoping to hold on to something in some sort of negotiations, if they occurred. Considering the bombs were dropped only 19 days later, that does not leave a lot of time or information to reverse course.
Then why did they plan so much for an invasion?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Downfall
MacArthur was in favor of going ahead up until the end.
It would have cost a lot, that is for sure.
Which would have been a clear recipe for Japan as you know it not to exist.
Elvis is here
You just invalidated what I was about to read. You should never let your emotions get in the way.
I think the gravity of the situation makes our assumptions irrelevant.
They had to do something as well as be prepared
Fact is Japan was defeated. No navy, no airforce, a fractured military mostly stationed over seas. There was no need to crack a walnut with an industrial sized blow torch, or in other words nuke Japan.
TaiwanIsNotChina
What emotions? Wasn't even you I was replying to.
So they were bored?
Fact is, dropping the bombs was the least deadly option.
Elvis is here
That is something that cannot be proved so hardly a fact. There most definitely was other options that could have been explored first, especially regarding Nagasaki
Fact is USA behaved just as bad as those they were trying to better by dropping two nuclear bombs on a civilian population
TaiwanIsNotChina
The 15 million dead in China would like a word with your both sidesing.
Elvis is here
They might agree that two nuclear bombs was not the only way and there could be have been other options to end the war. They might be sickened by the shear atrocity of it all. As the other casualties of the horrid conflict. What you think?
I wouldn't say my opinion is "both sidesing" too. Just not an opinion you have given much though to it seems. But that is actually beside the point.
TaiwanIsNotChina
I think they would be angry you are equating the death of 100x the atomic bombs as "just as bad".
Elvis is here
I think you are grasping at straws. What do you think the casualties think?
William Buse
The reason the atomic bombs were dropped were part of a cruel geopolitical struggle with the Soviet Union. At Yalta, before the US knew it would even work; Roosevelt extracted a promise from Stalin that the Soviets would enter the war against Japan. The bomb did work when tested at Los Alamos. The Russians entered the war and were rapidly moving through Manchuria. However, remember the US wanted them to help BEFORE they tested it. The last thing they wanted was to have the Soviet Union reach Japanese territory and have occupation rights. The bombs accomplished two things 1. Kept the Soviet Union out of Japan and 2. Show the Soviet Union we had it and would not hesitate to use it. Also keep the Russians out of the peace talks. Not the only reasons but definitely a major consideration
TaiwanIsNotChina
All correct but you are missing one thing: given the Soviet Union and later Russia's penchant for permanent theft or turning countries into police states, it proved to be an extremely wise decision.
utorsa
This.
As Brig. Gen. Carter W. Clarke, the officer in charge of preparing MAGIC intercepted cable summaries in 1945, stated:
"….we brought them [the Japanese] down to an abject surrender through the accelerated sinking of their merchant marine and hunger alone, and when we didn't need to do it, and we knew we didn't need to do it, and they knew that we knew we didn't need to do it, we used them as an experiment for two atomic bombs."
Truman's own diaries show that he prolonged hostilities until the nukes were ready. We also know that he lied to the US public when he stated that Hiroshima was a "military target".
Prior to nuking Hiroshima, the U.S. military had already obliterated over 60 Japanese cities with napalm and white phosphorous. This conclusively proves that Hiroshima and Nagasaki had little value other than as an opportunity for the US military to conduct nuke testing on human subjects.
In this connection, Paul Tibbets is on record as stating that Hiroshima was set aside as a "virgin" test city. Additionally, the primary targets at Hiroshima were residential in nature with the overwhelming majority of casualties being civilian. In fact, Honkawa Elementary school was mere meters from the epicenter of the Hiroshima nuke strike.
TaiwanIsNotChina
A conditional surrender offer is not an unconditional surrender offer, nor was it made to the right person directly. Also isn't it funny how 20,000 soldiers died at a non-military target.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atomic_bombings_of_Hiroshima_and_Nagasaki
utorsa
And the final terms of surrender were exactly the same as the terms the Japanese offered before.
Hiroshima's primary target was non-military as your link indicates. Honkawa elementary school being just meters from the nuke strike. 126,000 civilians were murdered.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Honkawa_Elementary_School_Peace_Museum
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atomic_bombings_of_Hiroshima_and_Nagasaki
Nagasaki was even more of an egregious and cowardly war crime with 80,000 civilians murdered and about 150 military casualties. Absolutely disgusting behaviour by the American government.
utorsa
Nuking H&N saved no one as the Japanese had already sued for peace. Additionally, no land invasion would have taken place as Russian entry ended the war.
Additionally, the U.S. military nuke strike on Hiroshima killed 3000 American civilians. Unquestionably a war crime.
http://www.aasc.ucla.edu/cab/200712090010.html
utorsa
A Canadian victim of Hiroshima recounts his exploitation as a subject of Truman's Atomic Bomb Casualty Commission:
http://www.cbc.ca/archives/entry/a-canadian-in-hiroshima
Truman's ABCC organisation studied Hiroshima victims without providing any treatment or substantive medical care. Japanese were treated like lab rats for experimentation by the American government. As the ABCC wikipedia page states:
We also know Truman lied when he stated:
In fact, the primary targets at Hiroshima were residential in nature with the overwhelming majority of casualties being civilian. In fact, Honkawa Elementary school was mere meters from the epicentre of the Hiroshima nuke strike.
Harry S Truman's approval of the decision to mass murder Hiroshima and Nagasaki's women and children was perhaps not surprising given his bizarre religious delusions and feeble-minded racism. According to Harry Truman:
TaiwanIsNotChina
I have seen nothing that indicates that Japan offered specific terms, just a vague claim that it had "no intention of annexing or taking possession of the area which we have been occupying as a result of the war". Feel free to prove me wrong, though.
http://www.nuclearfiles.org/menu/library/correspondence/togo-sato/corr_togo-sato.htm
Some school is going to be the closest school.
I will just say that Truman quite clearly directed that soldiers and sailors were the targets. Bombing was not exactly a precise business, either, in those days.
But nothing compared to the 15 million slaughtered by Japan in China.
TaiwanIsNotChina
Then why did he write down in his diary
"I have told the Sec. of War, Mr. Stimson, to use it so that military objectives and soldiers and sailors are the target and not women and children."
Sounds like you have a lot of unreconciled issues with Japan's involvement in WW2.
utorsa
Nothing compared to America's global conquests that killed over 50-55 innocent million people.
False. The primary aiming target was the Aioi Bridge: a residential area.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aioi_Bridge
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Honkawa_Elementary_School_Peace_Museum
Yes, this is how war crimes are rationalized.
Sure. I place more importance on Secretary of State Joseph Grew's analysis than yours:
According to Under Secretary of State, Joseph Grew:
MacArthur biographer William Manchester has described MacArthur's reaction to the issuance by the Allies of the Potsdam Proclamation to Japan:
>
utorsa
Either he a was a liar, deceived by his advisors or delusional.
Ah yes, when all else fails resort to ad hominem.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ad_hominem
TaiwanIsNotChina
Just keeping you safe, bud. Japan exists as you know it today because of Truman's actions.
utorsa
Thanks for letting me peer into your thought process. Interesting to learn how people justify mass murdering women and children.
quercetum
Exactly. They wanted to save lives that’s why the U.S. dropped the nuclear bomb on Vietnam. A 20 year war with many lives lost.
This is why the save lives argument doesn’t work.
It was an experiment. Get over it already.
TaiwanIsNotChina
What new nonsense is this?
Not going to litigate the Vietnam War here, but your lesson should be the US doesn't give up easily.
Except it did. A North Korea style government in charge of Japan would have killed millions by starvation and torture by now.
It turned out to be 100x the right thing to do. Get over it already.
TaiwanIsNotChina
Alright I got some time, so let's see what we have here.
Sounds like one person's opinion. The guy in charge of the cable intercepts may have been angry that they weren't acted on to his satisfaction.
We'll get into this in a bit.
It proves nothing other than that napalm and white phosphorous would not have had the desired impact on the Japanese leadership.
There are totally practical reasons why this was done: if you want to show the Japanese leadership the power of the bomb, you are not going to drop it somewhere where they will have any questions about what happened. As it was the leadership did not want to believe it was a single bomb.
TaiwanIsNotChina
All he is saying is the US should have encouraged Japan to surrender. That goes against your argument that Japan proposed to surrender.
All he is saying here is that he was worried an unconditional surrender demand might make his life harder because he did not know about the bomb at the time. It would have been a reasonable thought process for someone without that knowledge.
Sounds like again the opinions of one man and not the man that mattered, Truman. I do find it interesting, though, that the man that wanted to nuke China had this come to Jesus moment. I think the time of these quotes also would have mattered as someone would have had to have been familiar with the Soviet menace to make a full assessment.
TaiwanIsNotChina
I think DT stated it best:
But not as disgusting as Japan's.
utorsa
False. The nuke strike targeted residential Hiroshima. Specifically, the Aioi Bridge area with nearby Honkawa Elementary School. Kure Naval Shipyard wasn't even close. Try google maps.
Brigadier General Carter Clarke was the military intelligence officer in charge of preparing intercepted Japanese cables - the MAGIC summaries - for Harry Truman and his advisors.
I place more importance on Brigadier General Carter Clarke conclusions than a random internet commenter.
I also place greater value on the six of the seven US WWII five star officers concluded that the nuking of hundreds of thousands of civilians was totally unnecessary.
Truman was a racist and a delusional religious loon. According to Truman:
Your attempts to justify nuking civilians is unconvincing:
Meaningless whataboutism.
As we know, six of the seven US WWII five star officers concluded that the nuking of hundreds of thousands of civilians was totally unnecessary.
Fleet Admiral Leahy:
".....the use of this barbarous weapon at Hiroshima and Nagasaki was of no material assistance in our war against Japan......in being the first to use it, we had adopted an ethical standard common to the barbarians of the Dark Ages. I was not taught to make wars in that fashion, and that wars cannot be won by destroying women and children."
-Fleet Admiral Leahy
utorsa
Exactly. The Nagasaki nuke strike was targeted directly at a residential civilian area away from the military. This is conclusively proven by the death toll.
As the American hosted website of Wikipedia states, there were 80,000 civilians slaughtered. Approximately 150 soldiers were killed,
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atomic_bombings_of_Hiroshima_and_Nagasaki
As a 1947 editorial in the Chicago Tribune stated, President Truman and his advisers were guilty of "crimes against humanity" for "the utterly unnecessary killing of uncounted Japanese."
The 31st President of The United States: "The use of the atomic bomb, with its indiscriminate killing of women and children, revolts my soul" -
TaiwanIsNotChina
If this is all you have, then I have nothing more to say on this. I only have so many hours a day to spend on research to argue this one point.
You do know DT was being sarcastic right? You have one bomb with a large destruction radius and you drop it in between. The military death toll is meaningless. They are factories being operated by civilians.
I'm sorry 1900 Missouri education doesn't meet with your approval.
You can thank Truman any time for Japan's independence.
Not quite. You can't seem to acknowledge the context that the US isn't the greatest war crime committing nation even in the Pacific Theater.
utorsa
Tell me you have no argument with out actually telling me.
I'll let your words speak for themselves here.
Effective sea blockade had already destroyed production capacity. As Admiral William Leahy, Truman’s chief military advisor, wrote:
It is my opinion that the use of this barbarous we weapon at Hiroshima and Nagasaki was of no material assistance in our war against Japan. The Japanese were already defeated and ready to surrender because of the effective sea blockade.....
Nothing to add here.
More meaningless whataboutism.
In the words of the 34th President of the United States: ".....I voiced to him my grave misgivings, first on the basis of my belief that Japan was already defeated and that dropping the bomb was completely unnecessary."
In terms of war American war crimes, Fleet Admiral Leahy put it best:
Fleet Admiral Leahy:
".....the use of this barbarous weapon at Hiroshima and Nagasaki was of no material assistance in our war against Japan......in being the first to use it, we had adopted an ethical standard common to the barbarians of the Dark Ages."
TaiwanIsNotChina
Still waiting for that acknowledgment. You can just admit what you know to be the truth. You know the number of Chinese killed.
utorsa
Still waiting for that acknowledgment. You can just admit what you know to be the truth. You know the number of civilians killed.
As The New York Herald Tribune editorialized shortly after the nuking of Hiroshima: “.....an American air crew had produced what must without doubt be the greatest simultaneous slaughter in the whole history of mankind."
TaiwanIsNotChina
So we win the award for most kills per second. And I guess that means something to you?
utorsa
The nukings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki are 2 of the most horrifically evil war crimes in human history. This was apparent to the American mainstream media as far back as 1945:
On Aug. 17, 1945, David Lawrence, the columnist and editor of US News, put it this way:
“Last week we destroyed hundreds of thousands of civilians in Japanese cities with the new atomic bomb. …we shall not soon purge ourselves of the feeling of guilt. …we…did not hesitate to employ the most destructive weapon of all times indiscriminately against men, women and children. … Surely we cannot be proud of what we have done. If we state our inner thoughts honestly, we are ashamed of it.”