August 6, 1945

[blackhawknj]

The B-29 Enola Gay-named after the pilot's mother-with Paul Tibbetts and Robert Lewis of the 509th Composite Group at the controls-drops the Little Boy on Hiroshima.

[tmark]

An thus began the nuclear age!

[m1ashooter]

The two bombs probably saved my uncles life. I'm good with the use of them.

[dryheat]

The two bombs probably saved my uncles life. I'm good with the use of them.

Was your uncle a fair trade? I hope he was exceptionally productive.

[Major Tom]

[QUOTE=dryheat;592000]Was your uncle a fair trade?

Yes, his uncle was saved as well as millions of other lives! The Japs brought it all on themselves by murdering hundreds of thousands of people.

[fjruple]

The day the Sun came down and touch the Earth!!

[bruce]

These bombs were not ready for use against the Germans. Had they been ready, they would have been used. Happily they were ready for use against Japan. They were used. The direct result was that the Second World War was brought to a quick and complete end. Many many millions of lives were saved, both US servicemen as well as Japanese servicemen and civilians. It was the most humane resolution possible to what was the most extreme destructive war in the history of the world. May God grant that it will never again ever be necessary to use such weapons. If they are ever used in any capacity, it will not be a limited exchange. The consequences will be horrific and global. Sincerely. bruce.

[Liam]

Took my kids to the Smithsonian's Steven F. Udvar-Hazy Center last week. Just opened since advent of COVID. Lots of work being done, much material covered/unseeable, and a limited number of people allowed in at once. Still, nice to have something educational to do. The Enola Gay is there. You can look right into the cockpit from 8 feet away.
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[k arga]

WHAT THE JAPS DID AT nangking (spelling) they deserve everything they got.

[blackhawknj]

If the bombs worked as well as they thought they would some at the time argued that a strategic bombing campaign against Japan with nuclear weapons would eliminate the need for an invasion. In his "Jewel Voice" broadcast announcing Japan's acceptance of the Potsdam Declaration, Hirohito acknowledged that such a campaign could lead to the extinction of the Japanese as a nation and a people.

[m1ashooter]

Was your uncle a fair trade? I hope he was exceptionally productive.

He sure was. He was an accomplished leader in the Boy Scouts and a volunteer fireman for his community and taught people to swim at the local YMCA. He mentored many a young man and women and helped them become solid citizens. How about you what have you done for your community?

[dryheat]

It is wonderful that your uncle was able to survive the war and be the good citizen that he was. Now, I will get a little reaction here for this, but I have always had a problem with nuclear warfare. Yeah, I know it somehow saved hundreds of thousands of lives.

[blackhawknj]

All those young Americans who didn't participate in the invasion that never was got a pretty good deal, they went back to families and jobs and college and girlfriends and prosperity, and those young Japanese who got to participate in the rebuilding of their country did OK too.

[bruce]

Re: Lives saved. By any reasonable estimate, the lives that would have been lost in a full scale invasion and subjugation of Japan would have numbered more than just many thousands. When one considered the number of US servicemen who would have been KIA/WIA and add to that those servicemen from other allied nation, the servicemen of Japan and the civilian residents of Japan who would have been KIA/WIA ... when one considers the extremely limited willingness of the Japanese to surrender except in the most extreme cases ... it is not possible to see how the total losses would have been less than one million. After all, one need only consider the number of Purple Heart medals prepared and hospital space constructed in anticipation of losses that would be incurred in an invasion of Japan to realize that such an undertaking would have had horrific consequences. Sincerely. Bruce.

[blackhawknj]

The Japanese were seen as a particularly brutal and vicious enemy-the Rape of Nanking, e.g., and a very dishonorable one-Pearl Harbor, e.g. The delivering of the "ultimatum" AFTER the attack had started was more due to bungling and incompetence, in his response to the Japanese representatives Cordell Hull said:
"In all my 50 years of public service I have never seen a document that was more crowded with infamous falsehoods and distortions-infamous falsehoods and distortions on a scale so huge that I never imagined that until today that ant Government on this planet was capable of uttering them."