70 years ago Today, Aug 6.

In reply to alfadriver:

1 plane = 1 city......just be glad the Germans didn't get to that weapon first.

alfadriver wrote: From an engineering standpoint, I'm still pretty fascinated that the bomb dropped 70 years ago today was the first time ever that it was run at full scale. Talk about taking a risk. The second one was at least tried in New Mexico. Also from a development standpoint- the combination of an academic setting where information flows like a river with a military one where secrets are guarded with force- all for the most secret project of the war... wow. Oppenheimer was a pretty darned good manager to deal with that crazy mess of situations.

As I understand it, Little Boy was further complicated by containing what was more or less the world's supply of enriched uranium at the time. They couldn't have built a test bomb, but things were understood well enough at that time to give a high probability of it working.

There's a fair amount of info about how things operated at Los Alamos in Surely You're Joking, Mr. Feynman!.

racerdave600 wrote: As for the surrender, not only was it for bombings, but mostly because the war in Europe had ended and they were terrified of what the Russians might do. They would much rather have surrendered to the Russians than the US.

did you misspeak ? I was under the impression that they were far more afraid of the Russians than they were of us

wbjones wrote:

racerdave600 wrote: As for the surrender, not only was it for bombings, but mostly because the war in Europe had ended and they were terrified of what the Russians might do. They would much rather have surrendered to the Russians than the US.

did you misspeak ? I was under the impression that they were far more afraid of the Russians than they were of us

Absolutely got that backwards. They would rather have surrendered to the US than the Russians.

Here's a thought experiment for you.

What did your immediate family do? Parents, grandparents, etc?

Were their lives impacted by the atomic bomb and the subsequent cold war?

My in-laws would have never met had my FIL not gone to Korea (which wasn't hot when he went). My dad did the Air Force to get through college, and worked on some crazy pie in the sky plane projects (not the plane, but materials)- AND he and my mom met at a Research company, who did a lot of work in the nuclear field. Likely would have never met.

Obscure impact, no doubt. But 70 years ago's events very much shaped my life.

They damn sure didn't want to surrender to the Chinese.

Dr. Hess wrote: They damn sure didn't want to surrender to the Chinese.

QFT

The Chinese are still pissed, and rightfully so.

I just read this: http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/1946/08/31/hiroshima?intcid=mod-most-popular

Long read but fascinating.

The anticipated casualties of an invasion of Japan was more than 1 million U.S. troops.

Firebombing? The British learned that one first hand early in the war. London actually got off fairly lightly compared o Coventry. http://www.historylearningsite.co.uk/world-war-two/world-war-two-in-western-europe/britains-home-front-in-world-war-two/the-bombing-of-coventry-in-1940/

The Japanese certainly did not want to surrender to the Chinese. The 'Rape of Nankang' among other atrocities certainly did not dispose the Chinese to being benevolent. Nor were the Russians likely to play nice after all the various incidents along their Pacific border. Sakhalin Island in particular has been a contentious point. They were basically opposed to surrendering to anyone, which is why they said they'd fight to the last person.

That would have meant a guerrilla war that would have dragged on interminably. The firebombings didn't seem to faze them, so the two bombs were dropped. When it was clear there was a 'one plane, one city' weapon out there and that it would be chimp simple for the Allies to cut their supply lines completely, they finally decided to surrender. The death toll from the firebombings and atomic drops were horrendous, but there is some small comfort that those deaths prevented many many more.

So history remembers and judges us as the only country to ever drop atomic weapons on another country as an act of war. So be it. No, it wasn't exactly a fun thing to do but it was the best of a bleak set of choices. I can't say that if I were in Truman's shoes I wouldn't have done the same thing; it was time for that damn war to be over, period. .

I pray it never happens again!

Many historians understand that U.S leaders knew that Japan was already trying to negotiate a surrender before Hiroshima....

http://www.thenation.com/article/why-the-us-really-bombed-hiroshima/

Of note, you did not have to make the nation of Japan surrender (which many wouldn't) you just had to get the emperor to surrender, which they would obey. I have heard he was pretty close to surrender (I believe the generals where the ones very much against it).

Also of note, Japan may have been worried about Russia, but they did not need to be. Russia was pretty far from being able to invade Japan. They were woefully short of the naval equipment. In fact the US was in the process of lending Russia a large number of ships for the purpose of invasion, know as project Hula https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_Hula

About 'apologizing' for dropping the bombs: nope. No need to. The US did not start the war on either front, and yes I am quite aware that one reason given for the Pearl Harbor attack was that we quit selling oil to Japan. The reason we quit was that the Japanese Army was using that oil to further their excursions into China despite repeated requests to cease and this was used as a bullE36 M3 excuse to go to war; the reality was the Japanese were looking to open supply lines. The guy behind the Pearl Harbor attacks, Admiral Yamamoto, said 'I fear we have awoken a sleeping giant'. How right he was. Had the Japanese government of the time quit with the military expansionism they were pushing hard, the whole war might not have happened thus rendering the bomb useless.

It comes down to this: we didn't start the damn thing but we certainly finished it, decisively. Therefore no apology needed.

To all the armchair historians trying to rewrite history to paint the US (and by extension the Allies) as the 'bad guys' of WWII, stop. Just stop, dammit. If you are going to go to all the trouble to find what was allegedly done wrong (which actually was more from a standpoint of expediency, i.e. getting the damn job done) during that conflict, then I suggest you also go back and look at all the effort and money expended to rebuild our former enemies. Japan in particular benefited from American rebuilding efforts.

I'm thinking that, had the war gone the other way, they might not have been so magnanimous to us and I base that on how they treated China.

My daughter in law's dad's father, Jacob Beser, was the only person to fly on both atomic bomb missions on Japan. He's got a lot of photos from then, including movies from teh tailgunner and transcripts of the missions. Pretty interesting stuff. I'm getting ready to reo his website, because, frankly it's stuck in 1996: http://www.beserfoundation.org/

Curmudgeon wrote: About 'apologizing' for dropping the bombs: nope. No need to. The US did not start the war on either front, and yes I am quite aware that one reason given for the Pearl Harbor attack was that we quit selling oil to Japan. The reason we quit was that the Japanese Army was using that oil to further their excursions into China despite repeated requests to cease and this was used as a bullE36 M3 excuse to go to war; the reality was the Japanese were looking to open supply lines. The guy behind the Pearl Harbor attacks, Admiral Yamamoto, said 'I fear we have awoken a sleeping giant'. How right he was. Had the Japanese government of the time quit with the military expansionism they were pushing hard, the whole war might not have happened thus rendering the bomb useless. It comes down to this: we didn't start the damn thing but we certainly finished it, decisively. Therefore no apology needed. To all the armchair historians trying to rewrite history to paint the US (and by extension the Allies) as the 'bad guys' of WWII, stop. Just stop, dammit. If you are going to go to all the trouble to find what was allegedly done wrong (which actually was more from a standpoint of expediency, i.e. getting the damn job done) during that conflict, then I suggest you also go back and look at all the effort and money expended to rebuild our former enemies. Japan in particular benefited from American rebuilding efforts. I'm thinking that, had the war gone the other way, they might not have been so magnanimous to us and I base that on how they treated China.

+100%

"I fear all we have done is to awaken a sleeping giant and fill him with a terrible resolve."

He was correct. Ironically Yamamoto had great fondness for America and its people.

In reply to Curmudgeon:

Who is trying to paint the US and the Allies as the 'bad guys'? I've not seen it in this thread. I seriously doubt many modern-day Japanese or Germans would even argue that.

T.J., the modern liberal controlled school system is pushing ideas like that. Our country was founded by a bunch of racist slave owners, we nuked Japan just because we could, etc.

Dr. Hess wrote: T.J., the modern liberal controlled school system is pushing ideas like that. Our country was founded by a bunch of racist slave owners, we nuked Japan just because we could, etc.

Careful. Mom is watching.

To be fair, it would be pretty hard to find someone that would not be considered racist by modern standards in 1776 and I am not sure it is right to ignore that. Can't talk to the other point, but I would love to hear some examples.

It would be hard to paint the allies as the "bad guys" but it would also be ignorant to ignore the fact what we did was certainly not always "good". Btw I think you can justify the use of the bombs in both saving US and Japanese lives. Using atoms bombs is certainly a bad bad thing in general, but in context, not so much.

(not sure why bringing in political orientation is necessary)

Keep in mind too that the Japanese then were ruthless, almost to the point of being ISIS ruthless. At least if you were captured by the Germans, you had better than 50/50 chance of getting home alive, not so true with the Japanese.

In reply to Dr. Hess:

Its the whole "American Exceptionalism" train of thinking that's finally trickling down.

My personal opinion is that we need to go back to fighting wars the same way we did back then.....this "limited engagement" crap is really screwing us over and over again.

In reply to aircooled:

Actually, by the time they capitulated, the soviets had already been making gains down the northern islands and Manchuria...they didn't care if they weren't ready, they just sent their soldiers in and machine gunned them if they retreated.....

Yup, that is how they captured some of the Kural islands, almost entirely infantry. Needless to say, they took a lot of looses. Russia didn't have much of a navy in WWII, they didn't really need one. I think the only landing craft they had in the pacific are the ones the US gave them.

Knowing how the Russians worked back then though, they would probably just load up some ships with troops and ram them into the beach and hope they didn't loose 50% of the troops trying to climb off! The Russians may have been a bit gun shy (or perhaps up for some good old revenge) from the Battle of Tsushima (superior Japanese gunnary essentially cleaned their clock) which had to be pretty humiliating for Russia

Dr. Hess wrote: T.J., the modern liberal controlled school system is pushing ideas like that. Our country was founded by a bunch of racist slave owners, we nuked Japan just because we could, etc.

Right, because the modern liberal system existed back in 1945 when scientists who worked on the project didn't want to drop the bomb, and also included the people who regretted dropping the bomb shorty after Aug 6, 1945.

Please.

It's just as important to recognize the people who regretted dropping the bomb AT THE TIME as it is to correctly point out the many, many reasons that it was the right thing to do. Just because we didn't start the war, and the other side committed horrible atrocities- we don't get a 100% out of jail card for doing horrible things, too.

Needed and good are not the same thing. We had horrible option A, and even more horrible option B. Horrible choice A did end up ending the war. Great.

yamaha wrote: In reply to Dr. Hess: Its the whole "American Exceptionalism" train of thinking that's finally trickling down. My personal opinion is that we need to go back to fighting wars the same way we did back then.....this "limited engagement" crap is really screwing us over and over again. In reply to aircooled: Actually, by the time they capitulated, the soviets had already been making gains down the northern islands and Manchuria...they didn't care if they weren't ready, they just sent their soldiers in and machine gunned them if they retreated.....

So you want people to die on a really large scale? Yea, I don't. It's pointless. It's dumb enough that people are willing to kill and die over stupid things, now. No need to put that on an industrial scale where nearly 100M loose their lives over 6 years. Although, with current technology, that can be done in a afternoon.