Enola Gay: Burnt flesh and other magnificent technological achievements

On Sun, 14 Dec 2003 09:30:25 +1300,
(BackToNormal) wrote:

Peter Aitken wrote:

1) We could have dropped the bomb in a lightly populated area to show the
Japanese that we had it and hopefully scared them into surrender.

They could have dropped the bomb on a big city too to show the Japanese
they had the bomb, and scare them into surrender.


Never mind the inevitable japanese response to any such 'demonstration'
would have been to move allied POWs and internees into their key stragetic
locations and launch kamikaze attacks against every B29 which entered their
airspace from there on in.

Lone B29s upto that point were left alone precisely because they *werent*
deemed a threat.

greg

--
Once you try my burger baby,you'll grow a new thyroid gland.
I said just eat my burger, baby,make you smart as Charlie Chan.
You say the hot sauce can't be beat. Sit back and open wide.

Subject: Enola Gay: Burnt flesh and other magnificent technological
achievements
From: "Mark Jones"
Date: 12/13/03 2:20 PM Pacific Standard Time
Message-id: . net


"Peter Aitken" wrote in message
r.com...
1) We could have dropped the bomb in a lightly populated area to show the
Japanese that we had it and hopefully scared them into surrender. Note
that
Hiroshima and a couple of other cities were spared conventional bombing so
the effects of the A-bomb could be studied - rather cold blooded don't you
think?
Not even slightly. Truman did the right thing.




And if the Japanese ( or the Germans) rise again as a cruel and hostile
aggressor nations we will be back. And this time no more Mr. Nice Guy.


Arthur Kramer
344th BG 494th BS
England, France, Belgium, Holland, Germany
Visit my WW II B-26 website at:
http://www.coastcomp.com/artkramer

Please keep this crap out of rec.food.cooking. Thanks.

[RFC removed from Newsgroups line, followups set to talk.politics.misc]

--
Mark Shaw contact info at homepage -- http://www.panix.com/~mshaw
================================================== ======================
Talk sense to a fool and he calls you foolish. - Euripides

This revisionist bull**** keeps surfacing always from the 'usual
suspects'. most of them weren't around during WW2 and don't know
anything about how things were back then. I had an uncle - gone now -
who would have led his tank company ashore in March of 46 on Honshu.
There were no combat tasks for his company after three days. Why? They
would have all been wiped out by then. He was damn glad the bombs were
dropped. That meant he was going to live. He'd already been through
Saipan and Okinawa. Okinawa was where his M4 was hit by a Jap AT
shell. He lived through that, too.
Locate a book named "Operation Downfall" if you want to find out what
the invasions of Kyushu and Honshu would have been like. Read 'Typhoon
of Steel' or one of the other excellent books on Okinawa to see what
that battle was like. Then ask yourself - would you have been ready to
send your men in to repeat that - twice? Remember, Truman had been in
combat in WW1. It's the simplest thing in the world to
Monday-morning-quarterback, to say 'they should have done this - once
you know all the facts. Would I have dropped the bombs? Damn right I
would - they invaded MY country - I was born in Alaska and was living
there when the Japs invaded the Aleutians. FWIW I wouldn't trade the
life of a single American for a hundred enemies' lives - not then, not
now.
Walt BJ

One wave would drop high explosive to destroy buildings. Later
waves might have more anti-personnel oriented weaponry to kill
the firemen fighting the fires, while delayed HE might be designed
to sink deeper into the ground before exploding, thus rupturing
gas and water lines, for more

This sounds somewhat like Dohet's philosophy. Douhet suggested three waves of
bombers seperated by 30 minutes. The first wave dropped HE to knock down
walls, or entire buildings. Wave 2 carried incendiary to set fire to what was
not knocked down. Wave 3 carried chemical weapons to prevent the fire fighters
from being able to extinguish the fires.


BUFDRVR

"Stay on the bomb run boys, I'm gonna get those bomb doors open if it harelips
everyone on Bear Creek"

(Richard) wrote:
"Mycroft" david wrote
in message ...
Look up the projected losses on both sides
that an invasion of Japan would
have caused then tell me how in-humane the
A bomb was. Plus you forgot to
mention that the fire bombing of Axis cities
caused losses in some cases
greater than both A bombs, war is hell but
in the pacific the A bomb ended
it.

Myc

The Japanese of the time were monsters. No
one who had contact with them
(other than the Krauts) was unscathed by violence.
That "superior race"
deserved to be exterminated.
-Rich
Which is just what the USMC felt in an article in Leatherneck Magazine
circa May of 1945.

Posted via www.My-Newsgroups.com - web to news gateway for usenet access!

On 13 Dec 2003 17:53:47 GMT, "Emmanuel.Gustin" wrote:

Stephen Harding wrote:

: In reading your defense of the American use of the atomic bomb, and
: the refutation of some of the lefties claims of the evil nature of
: American leadership (over the entire history of the nation), I thought
: perhaps you weren't quite the anti-American ideologue I'd pegged you as.

And you were right -- I am not an anti-American ideologue.

I do condemn and resent, however, those -- on the left; but
also people on the right, like you -- who somehow want to
lump together the historical decision to use the bomb against
Hiroshima and Nagasaki, with the intentions of the current US
governments to develop nuclear weapons that are explicitly
intended for first-strike use in limited warfare. Different
context, different leaders, different goals and different
consequences: Let us decide each case on its own merit.

Truman's decision, seen in the context of 1945, was an
understandable one, rationally defensible and morally not
worse than many other acts perpetrated in this war, by friend
and foe alike. It is very hard to attach any kind of approval
to this decision; but perhaps it is sufficient to say that
certainly most of the arguments that are used to condemn it
don't survive closer scrutiny.

The Bush nuclear policy is not defensible, not on moral
grounds and not on grounds of self-interest. It is a prime
example of ideology-driven boneheadedness.

It is an example of individuals with far more information than
you have making rational decisions based on US National
Security. So sorry that you Japanese Ubermench do not
run Washington (but not for lack of trying).

Al MInyard

From: "Oelewapper"

Dear friends,

I'm really shocked, I have to say, to see how some members of what is
essentially the U.S. military apparatus, and its fans and employees, have
been working the numbers throughout this news-thread: Since when are we
taking civilian casualties (the so-called "collateral damage") as a positive
measure (rather than a negative one) for military planning (say "3 japanese
children, women or elderly = 1 G.I."). And since when are fire-bombings
that are (almost) exclusively aimed at civilian, urban populations a
justified means of fighting a war? Since when is the A-bombing of Nagasaki
(also executed for scientific reasons) a legitimate way of scaring a third
country like the U.S.S.R., or making sure that the U.S. would occupy Japan
before the Russians could? And since when is the mass destruction of cities
and innocent civilian populations a justified means for a nation to make
sure that it can win a war, even it is a world war? Isn't collective
punishment a war crime according to the Geneva Conventions? Shouldn't
nuclear weapons, or any other W.M.D., be used as a deterrent, a last resort?

snip

You are missing a few points. Just as in Britain, U.S.. and any other
industrialized country the people who work in factories or other valid military
targets live within close proximity to their jobs. Their families do too.
During WW2 there were no "smart weapons" to speak of so all sides accepted huge
civilian casualties as part and parcel of striking military targets which
frequently were in large cities. Take a look at bomb patterns for any mission
flown and you will see very few bombs actually struck their targets.

Given that fact would you have felt any better if the atomic bombings were
replaced with massive and multiple bombing raids with similar casualties?

If the bombs were not dropped then with the resulting surrender the war would
have gone on until at least April or May 1946 just with the planned invasions.
During that time Ishii Shiro could have perfected his biowarfare which he had
already used in China. Every so often there are outbreaks of disease in Red
China to this day that are attributed to his actions. Hirohito knew about his
program and I bet would have used the results on U.S. troops during the
invasions.

Even if the bioweapons were not used how many thousands of people would have
died during the bombing campaign, fighting in China etc next 8 months assuming
the invasions went off on schedule? Just as a SWAG I'd say well over the number
who died in Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

Cold hearted logic dictated they be used.

For an emotional reason how about the world was simply tired of a war the
Japanese had started a decade before? At some point it just had to stop.

Want another reason? The United States was running a 135% deficit and could
have gone bankrupt very soon at that rate. Britain's coffers, for example, were
empty or near empty.

I understand your emotional thoughts against the bombings, but you are looking
at the situation from 2003.

Dan, U. S. Air Force, retired

Emmanuel.Gustin wrote:
Stephen Harding wrote:

: In reading your defense of the American use of the atomic bomb, and
: the refutation of some of the lefties claims of the evil nature of
: American leadership (over the entire history of the nation), I thought
: perhaps you weren't quite the anti-American ideologue I'd pegged you as.

And you were right -- I am not an anti-American ideologue.

I do condemn and resent, however, those -- on the left; but
also people on the right, like you -- who somehow want to
lump together the historical decision to use the bomb against
Hiroshima and Nagasaki, with the intentions of the current US
governments to develop nuclear weapons that are explicitly
intended for first-strike use in limited warfare. Different
context, different leaders, different goals and different
consequences: Let us decide each case on its own merit.

Interesting observation, given that I don't believe I've ever
made a statement on this NG in support (or condemnation) over
current Bush nuclear strategy or policy, and certainly not using
1945 WWII context to justify modern nuclear policies.

You seem to be the one tending to "lump" all conservatives in
one negative grab bag.

Truman's decision, seen in the context of 1945, was an
understandable one, rationally defensible and morally not
worse than many other acts perpetrated in this war, by friend
and foe alike. It is very hard to attach any kind of approval
to this decision; but perhaps it is sufficient to say that
certainly most of the arguments that are used to condemn it
don't survive closer scrutiny.

The Bush nuclear policy is not defensible, not on moral
grounds and not on grounds of self-interest. It is a prime
example of ideology-driven boneheadedness.

I'm not up on the details of current Bush nuclear thinking. I
feel any "expansion" of the possible use of nuclear weaponry is
generally not a good thing. There may be tactical value in their
use, e.g. as "bunker busters" going after Bin Laden in the caves
of eastern Afghanistan, but the political baggage of their use
makes it not worth it IMO.

Best to leave nukes in the "too terrible to use" category of last
ditch national defense, although humanity is almost certainly
doomed to experience their use by *someone* at *some* time again.

I just hope it will not be the US that uses them for a third time.


SMH

"Stephen Harding" wrote in message
...
Emmanuel.Gustin wrote:
Stephen Harding wrote:

snip


The Bush nuclear policy is not defensible, not on moral
grounds and not on grounds of self-interest. It is a prime
example of ideology-driven boneheadedness.

I'm not up on the details of current Bush nuclear thinking. I
feel any "expansion" of the possible use of nuclear weaponry is
generally not a good thing. There may be tactical value in their
use, e.g. as "bunker busters" going after Bin Laden in the caves
of eastern Afghanistan, but the political baggage of their use
makes it not worth it IMO.

Best to leave nukes in the "too terrible to use" category of last
ditch national defense, although humanity is almost certainly
doomed to experience their use by *someone* at *some* time again.

I just hope it will not be the US that uses them for a third time.

I am not sure that Mr. Gustin has accurately portrayed the situation vis a
vis the research into the feasibility and usefullness of the potential new
small nuclear weapons. From what I have read, the impetus behind this
research is to investigate their potential for use in a rather small niche,
which you accurately indicated is the destruction of very deep/hard critical
targets, especially those related to WMD's. Some claim that it is going to
be possible to develop a weapon that could be used against such targets with
relatively little collateral damage--relative, that is, to the alternatives.
These a (a) strike with a non-nuclear penetrator, which may or may not be
successful, and even if it is may result in significant downwind
contamination (it would not be able to neutralize chemical agents, for
example); (b) conventional ground attack to seize the objective, again with
the potential of significant downwind contamination, not to mention the
attendant casualties accompanying the combat operations. A small nuclear
weapon *may* offer an alternative to these options that eliminates the
potential of downwind contamination while also ensuring that the strike
accomplishes its primary objective of destroying the target. Granted, that
is a big "may"--which is why the R&D effort is required, to determine the
feasibility of the option in the first place. Lest anyone think that such an
R&D effort is a concrete committment to production and deployment of such
weapons, they should be reminded that the US has conducted numerous R&D
efforts that never resulted in weapons deployment.

As to the relationship between this new effort and Hiroshima/Nagasaki--there
is none. For gosh sakes, if we wanted to go out and start hurling nukes
around at targets willy-nilly, we could do so right now--we already maintain
weapons that have selectable yields as low as point-three kilotons,
according to the Nuclear Weapons Archive. How many of them have we used in
anger? How many cities have we nuked post-1945? None.

Brooks



SMH