On the anniversary...Hiroshima

[7thgroupvolfan]

I feel more guilty about eating that extra cookie last night.

dam straight

 

[IPorange]

It's really not fair to second-guess this now, imo. It was a bloody campaign for both sides, and it had to end. The way it happened was brutal, but in the context of the war and the alternatives, it was the lesser of evils.

I have no doubt the second bomb had to be dropped to stop the war cold, as well. Think about what it would take if America was being invaded for whatever reason, for you to be willing to quit fighting by any means you had? Probably the introduction of weapons that made even resisting threaten annihilation.

 

[CSpindizzy]

It's really not fair to second-guess this now, imo. It was a bloody campaign for both sides, and it had to end. The way it happened was brutal, but in the context of the war and the alternatives, it was the lesser of evils.

I have no doubt the second bomb had to be dropped to stop the war cold, as well. Think about what it would take if America was being invaded for whatever reason, for you to be willing to quit fighting by any means you had? Probably the introduction of weapons that made even resisting threaten annihilation.

It's about the same level of people saying how despicable Sherman was for doing what he did in the March to the Sea (I'm opening pandora's box with this one). There are many of my fellow neighbors, native Georgians, who will cringe in the mention of his name. But in the grand scheme of the war, he did what was necessary to bring about a quicker end of the war with less casualties for his side.

 

[Plano Vol]

If you can't stand the heat (themonuclear or otherwise) then stay out of the kitchen. If they had developed the weapons, they would have used them. Japan's human rights record during WWII was abhorrent. They deserved no mercy but got a boatload more than what they would have given us.

It doesn't surprise me that other countries keep trying to hold the U.S. to a higher standard than what they exhibit (such as certain countries on our horribly oppressive immigration laws)......but it constantly amazes me that there are people in this country that listen to them.

 

[IPorange]

It's about the same level of people saying how despicable Sherman was for doing what he did in the March to the Sea (I'm opening pandora's box with this one). There are many of my fellow neighbors, native Georgians, who will cringe in the mention of his name. But in the grand scheme of the war, he did what was necessary to bring about a quicker end of the war with less casualties for his side.

For either side. Good analogy.

 

[IPorange]

If you can't stand the heat (themonuclear or otherwise) then stay out of the kitchen. If they had developed the weapons, they would have used them. Japan's human rights record during WWII was abhorrent. They deserved no mercy but got a boatload more than what they would have given us.

It doesn't surprise me that other countries keep trying to hold the U.S. to a higher standard than what they exhibit (such as certain countries on our horribly oppressive immigration laws)......but it constantly amazes me that there are people in this country that listen to them.

They would have hit Honolulu and then San Fransisco with their two bombs. Hell, we didn't hit Tokyo for a reason.

 

[DinkinFlicka]

He's full of quotes. Someone who cares less about political correctness. Pure honesty. He's one of the few military leaders who was pure and managed to separate politics from the military thinking. He was paid to win the battles with whatever he was given. In his mind if you didn't like the casualties, give him men who didn't die so easily.

Whatever happened to the cavalier military leaders who actually had good reason to be cavalier?

Patton's one of my favorites... he's right up there with Sun Tzu, Hannibal Barca, and Robert E. Lee as far as I'm concerned.

And yeah, Japan's war crimes aside, it boils down to "if not them, us." We won the race to nuclear weaponry, and that's exactly why things went the way they did. Whoever developed nukes first was going to win the war.

 

[gsvol]

They would have hit Honolulu and then San Fransisco with their two bombs. Hell, we didn't hit Tokyo for a reason.

We fire bombed Tokyo, producing more casualties than Hiroshima and Nagasaki put together.

Whatever happened to the cavalier military leaders who actually had good reason to be cavalier?

Patton's one of my favorites... he's right up there with Sun Tzu, Hannibal Barca, and Robert E. Lee as far as I'm concerned.

And yeah, Japan's war crimes aside, it boils down to "if not them, us." We won the race to nuclear weaponry, and that's exactly why things went the way they did. Whoever developed nukes first was going to win the war.

I'm a Patton fan as well and will always believe he was assassinated, what do you think of congressman Lawrence "Larry" Patton McDonald a cousin of General Patton??

If I had it to do over when I was your age I would have considered more closely what he had to say rather than listening to his detractors who accused him of being racist yada yada yada, but I was a UT student at the time and was quite a bit influenced by the leftist rhetoric of the era.

FWIW, the 'R' in the post below, R = Richard, as in Colonel Richard Gelreich, didn't have such a favorable opinion toward Patton, when I brought it up one time he said "Patton wasn't a team player." I guess not, neither Patton nor his cousin the congressman were so fond of prevailing political thought and they knew what they were talking about.

One of the stories told me by R had to do with fuel from Venezuela, remember when patton ran out of fuel in the movie??

Some of the fuel from various parts of the world meant for our armies was diverted to Germany, Richard was on one tanker loaded with diesel from Venezuela to Europe to ensure that we and not the Germans would receive it.

As they sailed through the Caribbean a German U-boat surfaced nearby and the captain used a bull horn to inform them they had twenty minutes to abandon ship and so they did. There wasn't an arrogant bone in Richard's body, he was ever so humble and saw far more of war than any man should, he said the German captain could speak better English than he could.

The German sub sank the tanker with two shots from it's deck gun so as to not waste a torpedo.

The captain and crew spent thirteen days under the broiling sun in a rubber raft until a passing freighter picked them up.

You mention Sun Tzu, are you familair with Morihei Ueshiba?

I'm always more interested in the individual rather than the collective.

Now, I'm not telling you that you don't know what you're talking about - but why wouldn't they have demonstrated the bomb for him at the Trinity test site in Almagordo? Why go to Arizona when they were assembled and tested in New Mexico?

"Reality is merely an illusion, albeit a very persistent one."
- Albert Einstein

And what if the USS Indianapolis had been sunk before it arrived at Tinian to deliver the bombs instead of afterwards???

Do you think the bombs crossed Arizona on their way to be boarded on the Indianapolis??

Do you think if we were going to demonstrate a nuclear bomb to the Japanese that we would want them to know about Alamagordo? (You can't even spell 'Alamagordo do do.)

I assure you I know what I'm talking about, whether I know all the details or not. My friend (let's call him W) had Hirohito convinced, his military leaders were skeptical, if not outright disbelieving such weapons even existed and they were really the ones in charge, Hirohito was a figure head who was used to announce their decisions, sort of like 'the hope of the world' who now is spending vacation at a $50,000 a week resort on Martha's vinyard. Oh the rewards of being a puppet, just ask Pinochio.

Once my friend W told me an incredible story about being in Nikita Kruchev's office in the Kremlin in Moscow during the Cuban missle crises at the very moment Nik 'decided' to pull the missiles out of Cuba and they celebrated the decision by each drinking a litre of Vodka.

That story was so incredible (let's say W was a man of uncommon courage to say the least) that I retold it to a couple of guys who had known him since WWII, with the question, 'do you think that is true?'

The first said he had been with him to Washington once and W certainly did know several people, he mentioned some names easily recognizable by everyone on this board that W personally met with and spent hours with them alone in their offices.

The second (call him R) said this; "I would never not believe anything W said, we worked on one assignment together and W knew more about the situation and our mission than the guy who was supposed to be briefing us."

R's credentials were impeccable, he served from before WWII up until after Vietnam, at one time he delivered personal 'eye's only" dispatches to Joe Kennedy (and others) who was Ambassador to Britian. "Eyes only" means the message is presented to the person to which it is addressed, not even to a personal aide. He said Joe always bought him lunch when he visited.

R went on to tell a story about 'the first time he ever took a drink of Vodka.' It goes like this:

R was in Scotland and had twelve 'dollar a year men' such as Mr Pratt of Pratt and Whitney that he was supposed to deliver to the USSR so that they could show the Russians how to build machines and assembly lines that could produce planes, tanks, ammunition and etc enmasse so as to occupy the Nazis on the eastern front while we got our own act together.

At the time 80% of all ships were sunk by German U-boats in the Norwegian sea and so they were sitting in port awaiting word from intelligence that there might be a clear path for them to set off for the USSR.

While there he visited John Haig who owned and opperated the Haig and Haig wiskey distilleries and Mr Haig presented him with twelve cases of personal reserve whiskey that isn't sold on the market anywhere.

R had a large stateroom on the ship and the dollar a year men had six small rooms with double bunks and so they spent most of their time with him and he shared his whiskey. He said they timed it just right, they finished off the last bottle of Scotch just as they sailed into a Russian port and as soon as he set foot on Soviet soil a little old lady offered him a litre of Vodka for a cigarette, he gave her two and took the bottle of Vodka. He said the Russian who was to escort him and his associates to Moscow told him he was foolish, he could have gotten two bottles of Vodka for two cigarettes.

(A question I've never heard asked but always wondered about is why did we invade at Normandy instead of landing in an undefended Vichey France, we could have advanced a hundred miles quicker than we made a hundred yards at Normandy. I suppose the answer has more to do with politics than militarytics if you catch my drift Vern.)


Feel free to tell me more about whether I know what I'm talking about or not any time your little pea picking heart desires!!

 

[TennTradition]

Do you think the bombs crossed Arizona on their way to be boarded on the Indianapolis??

Do you think if we were going to demonstrate a nuclear bomb to the Japanese that we would want them to know about Alamagordo? (You can't even spell 'Alamagordo do do.)

Well, apparently we both have problems spelling, since it is actually Alamogordo. What I am wondering is if they wanted to test the weapon first at Trinity to make sure it worked, without any Japanese observers there. In that case, then they wouldn't use the Alamogordo test as the observation shot. However, I don't think they would mind if the Japanese knew about Alamogordo...there wasn't anything there but the test site, it's not like it was Los Alamos.

I assure you I know what I'm talking about, whether I know all the details or not.

Well, I can't be sure you wouldn't mistake Arizona for New Mexico when you misspeak like...

Do you think the bombs crossed Arizona on their way to be boarded on the Indianapolis??

The bombs didn't cross Arizona...a bomb likely did, in Little Boy. And, that was actually just the U-235 projectile portion of the gun-type assembly. The target portions were actually flown out of Kirtland Air Force Base. As for Fat Man, it was also flown out of Kirtland in pieces.

Feel free to tell me more about whether I know what I'm talking about or not any time your little pea picking heart desires!!

As I said in my original post, I'm not going to tell you that you don't know what you're talking about, but the facts aren't always ironclad, so I'm going to question things that don't make sense to me at first glance, I'm going to ask about them. I can see why we would want to test a plutonium device first before we demonstrate it to the enemy for concern that it wouldn't work. I can see why we might not want to use the Trinity test site for a second test because it would hot with radiation. However, it isn't clear to me why we would then move to Arizona, when everything else is in New Mexico, to test the weapon for the Japanese. If we wanted to test it without giving locations away, why even do it in the Southwest United States at all? Why not use a small captured Pacific island unnamed to the Japanese in order to protect the device from attack?

I honestly don't doubt that you know a person who has an interesting background with regard to this story; with that said, I am going to ask questions on points that don't add up to me.

 

[gsvol]

Well, apparently we both have problems spelling, since it is actually Alamogordo. What I am wondering is if they wanted to test the weapon first at Trinity to make sure it worked, without any Japanese observers there. In that case, then they wouldn't use the Alamogordo test as the observation shot. However, I don't think they would mind if the Japanese knew about Alamogordo...there wasn't anything there but the test site, it's not like it was Los Alamos.

There was a good reason I never entered a spelling bee.

You seem to have watched a lot more history channel than I have.

It is my understanding that the reason for the test was that they weren't certain the bomb would work, especially the politicians and military leaders.

I'm pretty sure they didn't want to give the Japanese any clues, remember how many people of Japanese extraction we put in internment camps?

(BTW, not that it has anything to do with what we are talking about but four North Korean intelligence operatives were arrested trying to cross into the US from Mexico this past weekend.)

Another thing that I've heard was that Einstein wanted to have a discussion about moral ramifications etc, but Truman said words to the effect; "Al you handle the science, leave the politics to me."

I'll concede that Truman may have dropped the second bomb for the psychological effect that maybe we had an unlimited amount of bombs, to convince Japanese military leaders that the situation was hopeless. Remember it was deeply imbedded in the Japanese warrior culture that suicide was preferable to surrender.

All in all I am very dismissive of those who want to put a guilt trip on America for using the bombs for man reasons.

Well, I can't be sure you wouldn't mistake Arizona for New Mexico when you misspeak like...

Well the conversation didn't happen yesterday and we weren't shy about putting away pitchers of beer but if I remember correctly he did mention Arizona.

Another thing I learned from the guy was that you could get a bottle of kalua, put it in coffee and drink and the effects of an afternoon of beer drinking in what he called his field office would go right away, leaving the evening open for cocktails and further conversation.

I'm not one to interrupt a good story to ask dumb questions.

The bombs didn't cross Arizona...a bomb likely did, in Little Boy. And, that was actually just the U-235 projectile portion of the gun-type assembly. The target portions were actually flown out of Kirtland Air Force Base. As for Fat Man, it was also flown out of Kirtland in pieces.

Whatever the logistics, it is my understanding that we only had produced enough material for three bombs at the time.

One was used to see if it worked.

If we used another to demonstrate it to the Japanese then we only had one shot left and consider all the things that might go worng.

As I said in my original post, I'm not going to tell you that you don't know what you're talking about, but the facts aren't always ironclad, so I'm going to question things that don't make sense to me at first glance, I'm going to ask about them. I can see why we would want to test a plutonium device first before we demonstrate it to the enemy for concern that it wouldn't work. I can see why we might not want to use the Trinity test site for a second test because it would hot with radiation. However, it isn't clear to me why we would then move to Arizona, when everything else is in New Mexico, to test the weapon for the Japanese. If we wanted to test it without giving locations away, why even do it in the Southwest United States at all? Why not use a small captured Pacific island unnamed to the Japanese in order to protect the device from attack?

Oh, I thought you said I don't know what I'm talking about?

Hey, I appreciate the questions.

I do believe a small island in the South Pacific was discussed but then there was the problem of submarine warfare.

As I said, I'm not one to interrupt a good story with stupid questions because one good story usually leads to another as that one did.

I honestly don't doubt that you know a person who has an interesting background with regard to this story; with that said, I am going to ask questions on points that don't add up to me.

Well I spent a lot of time with Woody and Richard and listened to many of their stories.

Both were very brave Tennesseans who had an affect on world history.

I will say this much, what the public is led to believe on many issues just isn't how it happened.

Currently:

Japan Premier Apologizes at WWII Ceremony - WSJ.com

If you will take the time to read "Tragedy and Hope" by Quigley, you will understand one heck of a lot more about Japanese politics than you previously have.

It all reminds me (as do current dealings with the world of islam) of a scene from the movie; "The Sun Also Rises" in which the Japanese son who had been studying at UCLA was summoned home to Japan just before Pearl Harbor and was resentful and had a discussion with his father who said in the end; "Son it is not about all that, it is about who will be the master and who will be the slave."

I was reminded of that a few years ago when the Japanese came to own eight of the top ten banks in America. Currently some of the better paying jobs for factory workers in Tennessee are with Japanese own firms.

A question for you: If you had a BS in engineering and were about to pursue a masters in business administration, would you recommend MIT or Cornell as being preferable, and why would you recomment one over the other?

 

[TennTradition]

I'm probably not the best person to ask about the BS in engineering to MBA transition, because I don't know all that much about the MBA side. Do you know what this person would like to focus on with his/her MBA? If it is entrepreneurship, information systems, or supply chain / logistics then I think it would be hard to beat MIT Sloan. I'm not sure what Cornell's specialties are. I can also say that it is probably better to live in Boston for a few years than Ithaca, but that's my personal preference.

 

[gsvol]

I'm probably not the best person to ask about the BS in engineering to MBA transition, because I don't know all that much about the MBA side. Do you know what this person would like to focus on with his/her MBA? If it is entrepreneurship, information systems, or supply chain / logistics then I think it would be hard to beat MIT Sloan. I'm not sure what Cornell's specialties are. I can also say that it is probably better to live in Boston for a few years than Ithaca, but that's my personal preference.

To move up the managerial chain in an engineering firm.

I spent a year in upstate NY in Syracuse and liked it mostly and then my dad's favorite shotgun was a Model 37 Featherlight Ithaca and I have never really felt at home in big cities, being a country boy and all, so I would probably choose just the opposite if it were me.

Thanks.