Perhaps a million Allied casualties were anticipated, and maybe ten times that many Japanese.
The commemorations today are not for the dead of Hiroshima, for there are no similar commemorations for the many more dead from the fire bombings of Tokyo and other Japanese cities - perhaps half a million dead in total.
No, the commemoration can be presumed to be political, aimed at effecting (western) nuclear disarmament. We will leave for another day the links between the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament at the Warsaw Pact Intelligence Services (particularly the Stasi). Quite frankly, we need none. The lack of protest for the many other deaths from conventional weapons during the war, and particularly the silence on the many atrocities committed by the Japanese (and Soviets) tell us where their hearts lie.
The Dead of Hiroshima deserve better than to be used as ventriloquist dummies by today's Left.
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I was going to leave an agreeing comment, but it got too long. So I turned it into a post. Needless to say, I agree with you ... and the recent posts on "I Want A New Left"
The bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki was entirely unnecessary -- the Japanese were already defeated. It had one purpose, which was to scare the Soviets and prevent them from gaining strategic position in Asia.
“During his recitation of the relevant facts, I had been conscious of a feeling of depression and so 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, and secondly because I thought that our country should avoid shocking world opinion by the use of a weapon whose employment was, I thought, no longer mandatory as a measure to save American lives.” -- Dwight Eisenhower, from here.
Anonymous,
entirely unnecessary? So the Japanese military would have stepped aside and let a de-militarization proceed?
We had 60 years of peace in the West Pacific. I'm eager to hear you elaborate on how that would have happened with Tojo's crowd in power.
Monday morning quarterbacking is not restricted to the sports talk radio shows.
I'm more interested in what's happened to Hiroshima since then. There was a well-circulated set of photos in the last year or so, purporting to show Hiroshima then and now vs. Detroit then and now. We've all heard the stories and news about Detroit; it seems American politics is more destructive than the atomic bomb.
There were 40,000 Koreans killed, and a another 30,000 injured, in the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. They were in the cities because the Japanese were using them as forced labor in munitions plants.
In 1970 Japanese-Koreans built a monument to those dead. The Japanese made them build it across the river and outside of their Peace Park at Hiroshima. It wasn't until 1999 that it finally got moved into the park where it always belonged.
I write about that a little in a post of mine.
You can also read about the Hapcheon survivors -- Hapcheon was the South Korean city where most of the Korean bombing victims came from -- and their fight to get compensation from a largely unresponsive Japanese government at this L.A. Times article.
The Left and Reality shall forever fail to mesh.
Dad was a medic based in the Philippines. They were supposed to go in with the first invasion wave. They were grateful that invasion never had to be.
Look at the battles across the pacific and tell me how defeated the Japanese military was.
So Hiroshima as a bombing attack has an importance way beyond its actual damage to buildings and to life. Similarly, nuclear power stations also have a risk in the minds of many way beyond their actual impact. This makes me wonder that there’s something in common, some fear of nuclear processes. If so, what caused people to fear them so much?
Was it education (e.g. I remember being a kid in the 70s and having my primary school teacher warn us about Hiroshima and nuclear weapons). Maybe it is something weird and creepy with the nuclear process itself?
My father-in-law and 3 uncles were scheduled for Operation Olympic.
Last year I was privileged to meet Capt. Van Kerk, navigator of the Enola Gay and Coxswain Kuryla of the Indianapolis. I was able to thank them on behalf of Joe, Jim, Jack and Robert.
I think the photos of my relatives and their descendants (including my beloved wife Linda) are all the answer I need give to those who condemn the nuclear bombings.
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