SC2 - Atomic Bomb Option

[jon_j_rambo]

Professor Jersey --- Thanks for doing your job.

[JerseyJohn]

My pleasure General Rambo.

[Curry]

Shanky, what are you talking about? What planet have you been on lately?

The rape of Naking alone in early 1938, BEFORE most of WWII, Japan killed 400,000 Chinese civilians and raped and estimated 80,000 women. That was early in the war still before the US ever came into the war. You can find books in most languages on what is simply known as the rape of Naking. Seldom in history is a city so, dont know how to describe it except, literally killed off and raped, is it simply known as the rape of Naking.

I have a good friend that taught English in China back in the 1980's. The Chinese still had a holiday back then, litterally in English it translated into "Hate Japan Day". Not remember the war, or remember those who died, but Hate Japan Day.

[Friendly Fire]

and Curry cites just one instance.

some data at

http://users.erols.com/mwhite28/warstat1.htm

I cannot confirm accuracy of this data, but the numbers are incredible: MILLIONS of deaths attributable to Japan during WWII.

[JerseyJohn]

That's right; for a long time the Japanese tried, without success, to improve relations and the Chinese wanted no part of it.

Among other things, the Japanese felt free to infect large numbers of Chinese civilians with infectious deseases to study how quickly it would spread and how lethal the result to be -- they did most of this away from their own lines in areas they did not take control of!

Chinese POWs were routinely used for bayonet practice -- there are numerous photographs of this that were taken by the Japanese!

American POWs held by the Japanese had 17 times as much chance of being killed as American soldiers in combat against the Japanese.

The Koreans hated them, the Philipinos hated them and the Taiwanese also hated them.

During the years that MacArthur acted as Japan's de facto ruler he did a lot to conceal the more contemptable Japanese behavior but it was so widely known that it meant little.

The United States bacterial warfare program was created out of the one Japan maintained in Manchuria -- which is why Japan's mad scientists were never prosecuted. None of them were anywhere as near as nice as Josef Mengele.

Wrote the above while Friendly Fire was posting that link -- thanks for doing that Friendly.

Here's a direct quote from it:

"My estimate is that 11M civilians and 4.5M soldiers died in the Asian/Pacific War. That's 15,500,000 deaths which can probably be blamed on the Japanese to one extent or another."

[ March 23, 2004, 08:50 PM: Message edited by: JerseyJohn ]

[Curry]

Thanks Friendly and Jersey,

I remember my friend telling me about the hatred that the Chineses had for the Japanese when he taught English there. And how he kept trying to translate that local holiday and kept asking the Chinese about it that it had to mean something else, (he was in the north of China which was under Japansese occupation for a long time), But there was no other way to tanslate it into English except, "Hate Japan Day".

JJ- I think it was not only MacArthur but the US government that did not want to highlight Japan's role in China after the war had eneded. Japan was becoming a US ally and China had turned communist. So not only in the US but in all the west we did not hear too much of Japan's role in China.

[Kelly's Heroes]

The problem in Japan since the end of the war is that Japan still tends to whitewash what it did during the war.

Most school textbooks in Japan only pay passing comment on the real facts of the war and Japan's role of waging aggressive and brutal war.

In fact, many textbooks claim that Japan was forced into the war and fought a defensive war against America.

If Skanky is Japanese and/or he had studied in Japan, then I fully understand why he believes the things he does.

Heck, Japan hasn't even come to grips nationally for what it did.

Instead, by looking at the use of the A bomb, Japan has been magically transformed from being the aggressor to being a victim.

While the world may mourn for the victims of the A Bomb, who mourns for all those dead Allied soldiers, Chinese, Pillipinos, Koreans, . . .

[Skanvak]

Originally posted by JerseyJohn:

Actually you're both way, way off. Nobody knows exactly how many but it's estimated to be between ten and fifteen million Chinese.

You confused "victims of war" with "victims of war-crimes".

And the expcept for the nankings massacre (about 200,000 people according to the tokyo trials) all the other crimes did not involved a lot of victims if you compare them to WWII standard of NAZI genocide (about 10 millions in camps ; by Jersey reckonings it should be well over 30 millions), of course!

Those facts are corrects, the other are irrelevant :

For nanking

International Military Tribunal of the Far East: 260,000

Center for Research and Documentation on Japan's War Responsibility

[http://www.jca.apc.org/JWRC/exhibit/Index.HTM]

Nanjing Massacre: 155,337 dead bodies (a bit underrated, except if you exclude the chinese soldiers in hidings)

Chinese official estimate: >300,000 (of course wrong)

Japanese scholars:100-200,000 (a bit underrated)

Datong Coal Mine, China: 60,000 slave laborers killed

Forced labor camps in Japan: 6,830 imported workers died

Singapore: 5,000 Chinese k -- another estimate: 50,000-60,000 k.

Burma-Siam RR: 12,400 POWs + 42,000 Asian wkrs

Curry,

Are you kidding me????????????????????????

During research when I was at university I made on the war crime of Japan, it appears that most of them are one time event (like the bayonet stuff and the beheading). The Nanking disaster was a mess (that led to another one) that was considered unacceptable by the Japanese high command.

I am of course well aware of the japanese attempt to cover up such things. I don't excuse the war crimes but they are not incomparable with the ones the US commited (the concetration camps), so no need to hammer Japan. As for the prisonner some one already stated why japanese act like they did.

Kelly

Yes, I studied Japan, and I don't beleive the use of A-Bomb unjustified (ie I think it was justisfied). I don't see why knowing people well will make me less able to have a correct judgement than people that don't.

Rambo,

I try to make a point that the Japanese were figthing a traditional power struggle in Asia because the US challenged them, they act in what they beleived (wrongly) their best interest and that's not a crime. Compare it to the Nazis that attacked every thing around them for the sake of making Hilter's War, out of an hideous ideology, which is a crime and led to crime against humanity.

to all

I try to have a balanced point of view. Making war is not a crime, and that is all what Japan did ; because it was against us does not make it a crime either.

[ March 24, 2004, 09:55 AM: Message edited by: Skanvak ]

[jon_j_rambo]

Skanks --- I don't know what University's library you do/did some research at, but this might be the time to consider transfering. Sadly enough, in the United States, the liberals & anti-Christs have taken over the colleges. If you're going to school in the States, it's a scam. Study engineering/math instead of the liberal agenda, pass your classes, & don't let those professors warp your mind. The United States didn't provoke Japan or take food out of their mouths. For the sake of argurment, lets say the US did.....then why rape Nanking? The US didn't have concentration camps either. We did have "camps" for the Japs during WW-2, cause we didn't feel like having sabatoge in the West Coast. Looking back, that probably was a mean & paranoid thing to do, but it sure wasn't murder.

If you don't like the United States, that's fine. We have alot of problems, but who said this was Heaven.

"Well I've never been to Heaven, but I've been to Oklahoma" --- sung by Elvis Presley one afternoon in the Garden (Madison Square).

Time to be a Legend at work >>>>>>>>>>>> OUT

[Desert Dave]

Yer right JJ,

This topic seems to have a (... half) life

Of its own? :eek:

Well, on we go, and

Two by two like sinless animal twins embarked

Aboard an old creaking Ark,

I have an opinion on this delicate matter also.

First,

The brief dialectic.

FOR:

1) If there is to be a Pacific SC somewheres down the long winding road, seems as though nuclear physics should be accounted for somehow. Whether the double-dose A-bombing was actually NECESSARY, no, I don't think it was, a blockade would have eventually and finally ended it, but that's another tempestuous topic.

2) Provided SC2 allows us to play into 1947 or so, then it seems likely that the atomic bomb would be a minor factor at some point, especially if the Allies are losing.

AGAINST:

1) There are MANY other "what-ifs" AND many other weapons that are NOT included in SC. Why make an exception for the atomic R & D?

**2) One important consideration for SC2 is... to make money.

Given that a VERY LARGE percentage of humans DO NOT like to consider, let alone talk about nuclear device and devise, why arbitrarily include it?

It seems just too controversial, in the way that Nazi insignia, or SS-troops are... interesting, even intriguing, but NOT critical to a game's success.

Why alienate well over half (... my own poor anecdotal estimate, based on having lived a long time) of your potential audience?

How many Mothers will actively prevent their kids from buying it due to the consciously threatening issue of... "nuclear bombings?"

Besides, atomic weapons are TERROR weapons, plain and simple.

There is no provision, previously, or AFAIK for SC2, for... public disugust or morale.

What could be gained?

As has been rightly pointed out, the most damage you could probably do is to ONE HEX.

How is that going to change the balance of power?

The essential way that it might is IF you had some sort of "terror bombing" where the civilians would suffer JUST ENOUGH to pressure their leaders to call a halt to the war.

IMHO, the VERY SMALL effects of a VERY EXPENSIVE research project, does not justify including it in SC2.

Why?

So the player can feel as though he or she has Greek God-like power over the poor cringing earth-bound humans?

From the "public relations" point of view, there is an extremely compelling reason NOT to put nuclear weapons into the next game.

"Psychologically" I would also suggest that this would create, in each player's mind... ADMITTED or not, that the game is... un-secured and flimsy... liable to be "blown apart" by some rampaging Strangelove. :eek:

FWIW, I would vote... NO.

(... actually I am ambivalent, and HAVE researched nuclear power in Advanced 3rd Reich for example... BUT, it was done with a certain... eerie reluctance... sure! let's all be REAL and push our public or secret fears to the forefront for helpful examination... OK, fine, good idea... but NOT in a game that should be mostly for FUN...)

[ March 24, 2004, 10:51 AM: Message edited by: Immer Etwas ]

[jon_j_rambo]

Immer votes no Nukes. We don't want a "parental sticker" on SC2.

[Kelly's Heroes]

Skanvak:

Dear friend,

I understand your feelings. You are Japanese, and of course you are proud of your heritage and history.

Japan is a great country, and the Japanese (both culturally and militarily) have many fine attributes.

The Japanese soldier was a formidable opponent. They had a code and lived by it, even unto death. . .

However, it is unfortunate that the schools in Japan continue to downplay the real history of WW2.

There is a new generation in Japan that has little, or no knowledge, of its true role and activities in WW2.

This is not the fault of those Japanese, but it is the fault of the education system, and of those who seek to prepetrate a myth: that Japan was a victim and that the US was the aggressor.

I know it is painful to face terrible things in the past. But I think Japan needs to do so, so that it will never happen again.

Since WW2, Japan has become a model nation of a hard-working, family-oriented society, that has turned its back on war, as a way to resolve issues.

My best advice in wanting to learn some real facts about WW2, would be to use google, and to look up many of things that have been discussed in this thread and more.

There are many, many reliable sources on the web, and it can be a real education.

Cheers!

[ March 24, 2004, 10:27 AM: Message edited by: Kelly's Heroes ]

[Desert Dave]

As originally posted by jon_j_rambo:

Immer votes no Nukes. We don't want a "parental sticker" on SC2.

LOL!

Ahem, I do believe, yes! it was!... YOU!

Who has recently been importuning and haranguing Battlefront and Hubert to produce... MORE!

War games, yes?

Well,

They sure won't be able to do that if they don't make lots & lots of to-the-sky-stacked jack, true?

One way to absolutely LIMIT, unnecessarily, the audience is by making SC2 a "niche game" mostly for the grogs and militia-minded.

Another way to put it... if SC2 is a resounding world-wide success, then likely we will actually see... Pacific SC and maybe even that Civil War game that you are so waxing hot about?

A "parental sticker?"

Nah, we only need them when it comes to Tipper Gore type campaigns against degenerate and unholy stomp-rock and roll around the floor-boards music... LOL!

[Skanvak]

I am NOT Japanese, re-read my post. Japan was part of my courses at university and it was the subject of my graduating paper. Looked like it needed to be clarified.

[Desert Dave]

Skanvak,

Your opinions are welcome and appreciated.

We wouldn't want to EXCLUDE anyone... the MORE discussion, and even, outright dissent, then we as a "collected consciousness" might become less narrow-minded, and more enlightened. :cool:

After all, there really AREN'T very many irreducible FACTS.

Gravity seems to be one, but, who knows, maybe one fine Spring day we well find that the once taken for granted... gravity has... just up and went? :eek:

Look at Mars for only one of a thousand countless examples.

Just how long have we ignorantly been strolling along whistling a little rock-roll kick-heels tune, WITHOUT awareness that the "red planet" actually had water above and below surface?

Was there "life" there?

Maybe.

Maybe not.

In that way it resembles just about EVERY OTHER so-called "fact."

So.

Keep on keeping on with your comments and opinions... they are certainly no worse or less "learned" than anybody else's, as far as I can tell.

[Curry]

Concerning the Rape of Nanking

The high estimates are 400,000 killed, the low estimates are 250,000 killed.

Here are sites that back up both claims

http://www.tribo.org/nanking/

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/223038.stm

Skanvak stated

I am of course well aware of the japanese attempt to cover up such things. I don't excuse the war crimes but they are not incomparable with the ones the US commited (the concetration camps),

They are not incomparable with the US war crimes? What US war crimes? What crimes did the US do that killed off 250,000 to 400,000 people and raped upwards to 80,000 women? And the Naking event was only one event in China during a period from 1936 to 1945. Nine years of brutal occupation over many parts of China.

What country are you from and what University did you learn such propaganda from?

Perhaps we have an English problem or a cultural problem here. I dont understand where you are coming from. Perhaps our Distinguished professor of the battle front forum, JJ, can help me. What am I missing here. I dont understand where this guy is coming from at all.

[Skanvak]

The lowest (thought totally fancy) is about 40 000.

The one I stick with is the one of the Tokyo Tribunal (a US thing) that is 200 000 to 260 000 deads. The chinese numbers are propaganda.

I believe that an involuntary slaughter (the soldiers where looking for hidden chinese soldiers) to be as dramatic as the voluntary interment of your own local population (I refferred to the interment camp for Japanese immigrants). That an opinion of course; The point is that the rape of Nanking was not a planned operation and for the rapes, I don't think the russian were condamned for the rapes in Berlin (agreed it was not the US, but of the same scale).

The Japanese did made more warcrimes than the US, but not more dramatics one (except the confort women) and definetly not comparable with the one the nazis made.

I have react to the violence of Rambo statement about Japan. I don't say that Japan is an innocent victim, they chose their course of action.

[ March 24, 2004, 11:47 AM: Message edited by: Skanvak ]

[Curry]

Let me get this right, you are comparing the rape of Naking with the US internment of US citizens of Japanese decent as being on equal terms?????

[JerseyJohn]

--

--

Thanks Curry, I'll try, but frankly I don't believe it will get anywhere.

Skanvak

I have got some confusion but it doesn't regard the facts, or whose death is placed in which classification, my only confusion is in regard to your way of seeing things.

To begin with, your approach to numbers is nonsensical and your effort to have me appear hysterically exaggerating the figures I gave is really ridiculous; I didn't make any of that up.

Ironically your figure of 30,000,000 that you attempt to stick in my mouth may be accurate if one adds all the deaths by random relocation, deliberately induced famine and all the other gifts the Japanese gave the Chinese people. But for hard and cold facts I'll stick with the original 10 to 15 million I cited and rest my case on the exact quote from that statistical breakdown. An exact quote of just under 15,000,000 cited as a statistic, so before you hit me with this hit the people who compiled that offical statistic.

As for being confused by the difference between deaths as a result of warfare and deaths caused directly through criminal actions, I'm afraid that is not an ignorance I've got the pleasure of possessing. During the seventies and eighties I helped write two separate papers on what has now come to be known as the Holocaust and am presently writing a novel that entailed extensive research on the subject.

I've personally known several concentration camp survivors and was very good friends with a one time Waffen SS sergeant who, in his dotage, spoke freely of the things his unit had done in Russia and Poland.

He even had a box of photographs hidden away which he showed me. Things like partisans being hanged with placards about their necks warning others ... you'd be surprised at how many of those despicable criminals were children dangling like sacks of potatos.

For the Japanese, as a child I knew an American businessman who was in Nanking when the Japanese were running around raping and killing.

He spoke about it many times and I listened, and listened and listened. At first I thought he was crazy and so did many of the people who heard him talking, but a few trips to the library established that there actually had been such an event and what little I could find by way of details verified things he said. He described how many completely different groups tried saving Chinese civilians, often risking their own lives to go into the Japanese area.

He told about missionaries pleading with a Japanese colonel who laughed and meandered and made small talk in his extremely good English and French while the people they were pleading with him to save were being dispatched in various ways and in plain view of where they were standing.

This old man described it as something out of hell, men women and children being bayonetted, beheaded, hacked to death, bludgeoned, buried alive and doused with kerosine or gasoline or anything else that was handy and set ablaze to wild laughter. He said the colonel couldn't have stopped it in any case, that the troops had degenerated into murderers and rapists, there was no hint of discipline and the sergeants and lower officers were worse than the privates.

When there were no more Chinese left alive in that area the colonel said, "Anyway, they have been very bad and are being punished." With that he walked off and the American, British and Frenchmen who had tried to intervene were escorted back to the 'safe area.'

It doesn't matter whether it was 30,000,000 or 10,000,000 or even only five poor bastards, one would have been too many.

As for the dropping of those two A-bombs, it was a horrible act but no more horrible than any of the strategic bombings on numerous Japanese and German cities -- and they were not done to provide some sort of sadistic pleasure. They were done to try and help win a war started by the countries being victimized. I feel for the poor bastards being turned into charcoal and ash, I honestly do, but I'm not about to condemn the guys in the bombers for doing it.

There was a Japanese movie on an Hiroshima survivor who visits her old home and points out the various monuments donated by the USSR and other Communist nations during the Cold War. A granddaughter asks where the American monument is and the old lady says, "Well, they dropped the bomb, that is their momument."

Please give me a break Grandma, go look at some footage of the Rape of Nanking and the Baatan Death March and those skeletal surviving POWs and then come back to discuss the burn victims. I'll commiserate, God how terrible I really do feel for those doomed shivering blistered kids, it's heart wrenching and heartbreaking. But hey, how about the footage that shows Japanese infantrymen dragging Chinese civilians into a hole, covering them and dancing on the shimmering earth, arm in arm, laughing like hell while the last pockets of air rise to the surface. What the hell is that, it was shot by a Japanese soldier as a happy memory!

Well, I agree with Immer, all of this is now going in circles and repeating itself.

As my good friend General Rambo says, we do not live in heaven.

I don't hate the Germans, I don't hate the Japanese, I don't hate any group of people. All of our ancestors, at one time or another have done similar things. As a matter of fact, I've got a little something more personal to add, I've had very brutal events in my own life, both received and inflicted and I feel neither good nor bad about them. It's part of being an imperfect human.

But I don't claim I was a saint.

Which seems to be Japan's problem -- somewhere along the line they've chosen to gloss over their own deeds and now they're pretending they were somehow the victims.

As for your bandying of numbers, I notice they keep changing, keep spiraling downwards.

So, what's the key, 400,000 would have been bad but a mere 200,000 was only -- what, self-inflicted? Yes, the Chinese brought it upon themselves, just like those dangling child partisans in my long dead friends photographs.

This is the last post I'll make to this thread so please leave me out of the further discussion. To be really honest, writing this has brought some things back to me that I don't like to think about, and I'm not masochistic.

[SeaMonkey]

Thank you JJ for that cold shower of reality, I couldn't have said it better myself.....I am honored to call you Brother.

[Desert Dave]

OTOH, a well-documented and aptly ascertained series of "facts" IS, or can be a compelling and convincing argument.

I am NOT saying that ALL facts are equal.

We DO need to make choices, let us pray, based on the BEST available evidence.

I am NOT taking sides in this argument.

In this matter, I don't know enough about ALL of the relevant facts to adequately say who is more right-speaking than another.

Suffice it to say that atrocities were committed during WW2 by all sides (... for instance, the "terror" bombing of Hamburg and Dresden, or the dropping of A-bombs on Japan... has NO satisfactory explanation, other than possibly... a sheer revenge, IMHO, but, that is just me, no apology...),

And also apparent, to me, that the Germans and Japanese were guilty (... to deliberately use an old-fashioned word) of MORE war-crimes than ANY of the Western Allies.

To pretend, or imply otherwise is not in keeping with the "common understanding."

Just wanted to clarify, so that I am not appearing to advocate a "blind acceptance" of any particular dogma, or statistical analysis, or version of ancient events.

TIME is the greatest teacher of all, and ever will be. :cool:

Sometimes, there are new discoveries, whether the area of study is History, or Anthropology or Physics or Psychology.

[Kelly's Heroes]

Originally posted by Skanvak:

I am NOT Japanese, re-read my post. Japan was part of my courses at university and it was the subject of my graduating paper. Looked like it needed to be clarified.

Sorry for the mistake.

But my observations about Japan still hold.

I would seriously read wider material than what was offered in your university courses. Some Profs have an odd way of distorting events.

I attended university too, and survived despite what I learned.

[Desert Dave]

As originally posted by Kelly's Heroes:

I would seriously read wider material than what was offered in your university courses. Some Profs have an odd way of distorting events.

LOL!

Sure enough.

As do:

Parents,

And priests & rabbis & mullahs and ministers,

And nice or psychotic next-door neighbors,

And the brothers and the sisters,

And self-enclosed, self-supporting clans

And groups and!

Fanatics in peanut-shell littered grand-stands,

Everywhere!

LOL!

EVERYTHING is deliberately, carefully culled out of the immense mass of information out there.

EVERYBODY has preconceived notions about... well, just about everything, even

In hallowed halls of Science!

Why single out Professors?

It's de rigueur to blame the wrack & woes

On those who are... supposed

To be... liberal? LOL!

If the "facts" or... the gloves don't fit?

You can't vote to convict! LOL!

[ March 24, 2004, 02:46 PM: Message edited by: Immer Etwas ]

[Kelly's Heroes]

Originally posted by Immer Etwas:

In this matter, I don't know enough about ALL of the relevant facts to adequately say who is more right-speaking than another.

Suffice it to say that atrocities were committed during WW2 by all sides (... for instance, the "terror" bombing of Hamburg and Dresden, or the dropping of A-bombs on Japan... has NO satisfactory explanation, other than possibly... a sheer revenge, IMHO, but, that is just me, no apology...),

You seem to have confused the desire by those nations who wanted to end the war with those nations who started the war.

Where are your pleas of sympathy for those who suffered and died in bombing raids by the Axis in Guernica, Warsaw, Belgrade, London, Conventry, Rotterdam, Moscow, Leningrad, Stalingrad, Minsk, etc, etc. . .

As to the Atomic Bombs being dropped on Japan, please read the following:

Why the Bombs Were Dropped on Japan

Regrettably, the dropping of the two atomic bombs cost many lives. But consider this: Japan was engaged in a Total War of conquest. The surprise attack on Pearl Harbor was only the beginning.

In Singapore, Hong Kong, and the Phillipines both Allied soldiers and civilians paid a high price in lives. Over 10,000 Allied soldiers lost their lives in the infamous "Bataan Death March". Japanese troops had murdered 250,000 Chinese civilians in the Rape of Nanking alone.

By 1945, America was planning to invade the Japanese home islands.

When one considers the huge loss of lives in the battles for Iwo Jima and Okinawa, it becomes apparent that the Japanese would have fought to the last man, woman and child on the mainland of Japan.

For example:

Okinawa was the largest amphibious invasion of the Pacific campaign and the last major campaign of the Pacific War. More ships were used, more troops put ashore, more supplies transported, more bombs dropped, more naval guns fired against shore targets than any other operation in the Pacific. More people died during the Battle of Okinawa than all those killed during the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Casualties totaled more than 38,000 Americans wounded and 12,000 killed or missing, more than 107,000 Japanese and Okinawan conscripts killed, and perhaps 100,000 Okinawan civilians who perished in the battle.

[NOTE: The Americans suffered 36 ships destroyed, 368 ships damaged, and 5,000 sailors killed as the result of the Japanese employing 1,400 Kamikaze planes.

What would the casualties have been to the American landing forces if the Japanese had had an opportunity to use the 12,700 Kamikaze planes that were waiting for the American forces that were to invade the Japanese home islands?]

If the USA had not dropped the bombs, then before any invasion, you can bet that 1,000 plane bombing raids would have laid waste the cities of Japan, and the destruction and loss of life from this would have been horrendous, and far, far worse than that which resulted from the two atomic bombs.

The Japanese High Command was training women and children to attack American soldiers on the beach and they were holding back over 12,000 Kamikaze planes with which to use against American ships and landing craft. Japan was gearing up to commit national suicide, and it was going to take with it every American soldier who stepped foot on Japanese soil.

You can bet your bottom dollar that if there had been an invasion, not only would there have been hundreds of thousands of American deaths, but the Japanese would have lost millions of lives.

It was well known to American leaders that Japan was NOT being run by a civilian government during the war.

Instead, most power was divided between the Japanese Army and Navy, with each branch having its own sphere of influence. In fact there was a very intense rivalry between these two branches of the Japanese armed forces.

The Americans knew that in order to end the war, they had to decisively convince both the Japanese Army and Naval High Commands that further resistance would be futile.

It is no coincidence, therefore, that Hiroshima was the target for the 1st atomic bomb. This bomb was made of URANIUM and was nick-named Little Boy.

For Operation Olympic, American forces would have landed against elements of the Second General Army. The defensive zone of the Second General Army was the western portion of Honshu and the islands of Shikoku and Kyushu. Within three days of being activated, on 18 April 1945, the Second General Army established its permanent headquarters in HIROSHIMA. The Second General Army commanded the Fifteenth and Sixteenth Area Armies (equivalent to a U.S. field army).

Since the Japanese Second General Army would have been in control of ALL Japanese defensive forces fighting against the American invasion, and since its HQ was located in Hiroshima, then this is why it was targetted by the 1st Atomic Bomb.

Hiroshima also contained important war matériel factories since it was the Japanese policy to build many of its industries near civilian population centres.

It is also no coincidence that the second Atomic Bomb was dropped on Nagasaki. This bomb was made of PLUTONIUM, and was nick-named Fat Man, and was a much more explosive bomb (22 kilotons of TNT as opposed to 13) than the one dropped on Hiroshima.

Nagasaki was a great industrial and commercial centre. In addition, it contained the venerated Japanese Naval Academy as well as being home to a major naval base. This naval base would have been used as a staging area for Japanese subs, suicide boats and ships that would have been used to attack American landing craft.

Nagasaki was also where the world's most powerful battleship, the Yamato, was built in secret.

Since Nagasaki contained a major naval base that could have been used as a staging area for attacks on American landing forces, and since it was the seat of the Japanese Naval Command, and since it was a major industrial and commerical centre, then it follows that this is the reason why a bomb was dropped on this city.

The Japanese had prepared 12,700 Kamikaze planes, thousands of submarines and small attack boats, mines, suicide (manned) torpedoes, millions of soldiers and civilians, etc, etc to inflict the greatest possible death and carnage on American landing forces.

Dropping the two bombs on Japan convinced the Japanese that further resistance was utterly futile. Ironically, the dropping of the bombs on Japan in fact SAVED the lives of millions of people, mostly Japanese.

[ March 24, 2004, 03:11 PM: Message edited by: Kelly's Heroes ]

[Kelly's Heroes]

Originally posted by Immer Etwas:

</font><blockquote>quote:</font><hr />As originally posted by Kelly's Heroes:

I would seriously read wider material than what was offered in your university courses. Some Profs have an odd way of distorting events.

LOL!

Sure enough.

As do:

Parents,

And priests & rabbis & mullahs and ministers,

And nice or psychotic next-door neighbors,

And the brothers and the sisters,

And self-enclosed, self-supporting clans

And groups and!

Fanatics in peanut-shell littered grand-stands,

Everywhere!

LOL!

EVERYTHING is deliberately, carefully culled out of the immense mass of information out there.

EVERYBODY has preconceived notions about... well, just about everything, even

In hallowed halls of Science!

Why single out Professors?

It's de rigueur to blame the wrack & woes

On those who are... supposed

To be... liberal? LOL!

If the "facts" or... the gloves don't fit?

You can't vote to convict! LOL! </font>