iwo jima on history channel

[Dan]

With the A-Bomb, it didn't matter what part of town you were in. I think that's what he was trying to say.

Exactly... kinda. The point I attempted to throw out was that many people have a false perception of reality. The A-Bomb is perceived as the instantaneous and complete annihilation of a City. More traditional bombing methods are seen as something you have a chance to survive. I'm not saying that's true. I'm saying that's the perception. And because of that perception, the use of atomic bombs is looked upon more negatively.

[Jim in Anchorage]

How about radiation induced cancer?

I don't know. Ask the GIs that were exposed at the Nevada test area. You need to remember it was 1945 and the effects of radiation were not known.besides,who cares? I don't think you grasp the concept of WORLD WAR. If the Japs had the ways and means to nuke D.C. they would have done it. We had the abllity to hit them hard, they can't do a thing a about it. War over.

[SageAgainstTheMachine]

I don't know. Ask the GIs that were exposed at the Nevada test area. You need to remember it was 1945 and the effects of radiation were not known.besides,who cares? I don't think you grasp the concept of WORLD WAR. If the Japs had the ways and means to nuke D.C. they would have done it. We had the abllity to hit them hard, they can't do a thing a about it. War over.

 

Did I say in the post you quoted me on that we shouldn't have done it? I was responding to another poster who said he'd rather be killed via A-bomb than carpet bombing because he'd prefer to be vaporized over a slower death, so I pointed out that many people also died painful deaths from radiation. Completely different topic than what you think you're arguing with me about.

[ExiledInIllinois]

It really did, especially with those bombs (which were "small" as nuclear weapons go). Nagasaki, in particular...the lay of the land - hills and such - reflected blast waves in unpredictable ways that left certain parts of the city untouched that were theoretically inside the blast radius.

 

Exactly.

 

I recall a story (quoting from memory) of one American POW that was taken back to Japan and survived the A-bomb blast... It is one story of a prisoner that was put in a thick, very thick concrete cell. I think it was at the Nagasaki site??

 

The point is... Who the hell would think being taken prisoner by the Japanese during WWII and transported back to Japan could ACTUALLY SAVE YOUR LIFE!!

 

Here is one person who survived both Bataan and Nagasaki (he was across the bay at the coal mine when Nagasaki went off):

 

Survived Both Bataan and Nagasaki

 

Wow... One tough (and a bit lucky) guy!

 

Dr. Lester Tenney survived the Bataan Death March (April 1942, Phillipines). After arriving at Camp O'Donnell he escaped into the jungles of the Philippines, and was recaptured days later. He survived the "hell ships", a month-long voyage in the hold of a ship from the Phillipines to Omuta. There, he was slave labor as a POW in a coal mine. He witnessed the atomic bomb blast at Nagasaki from the prison camp across the bay from Nagasaki, which ended the war for him a day later.

 

See... I knew toiling in the mines could save your life!

[Jim in Anchorage]

Did I say in the post you quoted me on that we shouldn't have done it? I was responding to another poster who said he'd rather be killed via A-bomb than carpet bombing because he'd prefer to be vaporized over a slower death, so I pointed out that many people also died painful deaths from radiation. Completely different topic than what you think you're arguing with me about.

This was never a real issue of ways of of killing. In your first post, you optioned Truman decided to kill civilians rather then solders. You seem to have backed away from that, so I will give you credit for a open mind. Again, in a world war only 60 years later do we have the luxury of debating right from wrong.

[tennesseeboy]

I would suggest the much the difference of opinion is just perception. For example, Firebombing is less bad because it's 100's or 1,000's of bombs dropped over the course of hours and I can hide in the cellar and still survive. An atomic bomb, on the other hand, is a single bombed that in an instant completely incinerates an entire city. Hence, I'll take my chances with the "traditional" bombs because they're not as devastating.

 

Not saying any of that is true - just saying that is likely many people's perceptions.

Chances are if you are in Dresden or Tokyo (Amnerican Firebombings designed to take out a lot more than railyards.) the firestorm is going to get you regardless of which "cellar" you get to. Those firestorms were one horrible way to go.

[tennesseeboy]

An excerpt from James Dickey’s “The Firebombing”:

 

 

 

Gun down

The engines, the eight blades sighing

For the moment when the roofs will connect

Their flames, and make a town burning with all

American fire.

Reflections of houses catch;

Fire shuttles from pond to pond

In every direction, till hundreds flash with one death.

With this in the dark of the mind,

Death will not be what it should;

Will not, even now, even when

My exhaled face in the mirror

Of bars, dilates in a cloud like Japan.

The death of children is ponds

Shutter-flashing; responding mirrors; it climbs

The terraces of hills

Smaller and smaller, a mote of red dust

At a hundred feet; at a hundred and one it goes out.

That is what should have got in

To my eye

And shown the insides of houses, the low tables

Catch fire from the floor mats,

Blaze up in gas around their heads

Like a dream of suddenly growing

Too intense for war. Ah, under one’s dark arms

Something strange-scented falls—when those on earth

Die, there is not even sound;

One is cool and enthralled in the cockpit,

Turned blue by the power of beauty,

In a pale treasure-hole of soft light

Deep in aesthetic contemplation,

Seeing the ponds catch fire

And cast it through ring after ring

Of land: O death in the middle

Of acres of inch-deep water!

[DC Tom]

Chances are if you are in Dresden or Tokyo (Amnerican Firebombings designed to take out a lot more than railyards.) the firestorm is going to get you regardless of which "cellar" you get to. Those firestorms were one horrible way to go.

 

In Hamburg, after the fire died out, they opened some bomb shelters and found piles of ash. It was all that was left of the bodies. I've seen pictures of bodies from Dresden...full-grown adult bodies shrunken to the size of a 10-year old from dessication and the heat (and no, I don't know how the bones shrunk, so don't ask me.)

 

 

Being bombed is pretty much hell on earth, no matter what type of bomb used.