DOWNFALL: THE STARK REALITIES OF THE ATOMIC BOMB

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National Museum of the Pacific War

Күн бұрын

Пікірлер: 31

@stephenalexander6721 Жыл бұрын

Once the dogs of war are let loose, there is no saying how far they will run, or on who they will feed.

@valdorhightower Жыл бұрын

I purchased Mr. Frank's book "Downfall" and found it to an interesting and convincing read. I heartily recommend it.

@gsr4535 Жыл бұрын

Me too.

@DoctorX101 Жыл бұрын

@@gsr4535 Me three, but longer ago. The description on how effective targeted bombing actually was was alone worth it.

@gsr4535 Жыл бұрын

Speaking of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, is there a memorial to all the Asian civilians who died at the hands of Imperial Japan? Hmm......

@DoctorX101 Жыл бұрын

Given the Japanese opposition to the statues remembering the Comfort Women. . . .

@raymondswenson1268 Ай бұрын

I served at HQ Strategic Air Command 1984-1989. In my training fornresponding to nuclear weapon acvidents, I learned that there were nine more plutonium bombs in production at the surrender. When these 9 bombs werr tested, only ONE produced a nuclear explosion. The implosion mechanism, the secret stolen by the Soviet spies at Los Alamos, was still imperfect. If the other bombs had been used, they would have fizzled, undercutting the threat tremendously. The USA was very lucky that the emperor forced the surrender before we tried using another nuclear bomb. And it us likely that this unreliability was a reason Truman did not use nuclear weapons in Korea. The bombs were more valuable as a threat than as an unreliable weapon. Finally, justifying the use of the bombs by the expected casualties from an invasion of Kyushu was DUMB. Just as Nimitz bypassed many Japanese held islands on his way to Tinian and Saipan, the US could have BYPASSED KYUSHU AND INVADED SENDAI IN THE NORTHEAST. Sendai was poorly defended. The kamikaze weapons stockpiled in Kyushu could not be easily transported a thousand miles north to meet an invasion in Sendai. And on a real globe, it is clear that SENDAI IS CLOSER TO ALL US MAIN BASES in Hawaii, San Diego, San Francisco, Seattle, and Alaska than Kyushu. A feint syrik8ng Kyushu would distract the Japanese commanders while Sendai was invaded as a surprise, cutting off northern Honshu and Hokkaido. Capture of Aomori, Hakodate and Sapporo could be done at leisure. An invasion of Niigata on the west coadt could then directly threaten Osaka and Kobe.

@hdfoster5507 11 ай бұрын

Dear Mr. Frank, I realize full well that the loss of a single life is a tragedy, and the loss of millions of lives is a holocaust. But what does one do when one is attacked, without warning or declaration, and the enemy fights to the DEATH and indoctrinates all it's citizens, including all civilians as well as military, that they have a sacred duty to die for their country and/or leader in order to defeat an enemy (i.e.: us). That was what happened in Japan and to a somewhat lesser degree in both Germany and the U.S.S.R. during WWII. Answer, one does everything one can to destroy the attacker's means to make war. It would not have been necessary to use the Atomic bombs on Japan if they would have ceased hostile activities when they lost Okinawa, BUT, they just refused to stop, so what choice did we have? Invasion would have killed up to a million more Americans and allies and probably two to six million more Japanese. A blockade of Japan would have most probably killed as many more Japanese and would have forced us to eventually invade anyway. So what options did we have? Considering the attitude of the Japanese military I personally believe dropping the A-Bomb(s) was the most humane choice for everyone. Remember, Hitler fought till the end and gave 'orders' to Speer to destroy everything in Germany because the German people let 'HIM' (what a putz) down. The simple fact is that until we, as human beings, decide that armed conflict is a really dumb way to decide disputes we will always continue to cause death to not only enemy combatants but to those who directly support them by providing food, arms, and human comforts that get in the way. This is because, no matter how much we try we will never eliminate our instinctual animal nature to protect ourselves, our children, our 'tribe' and our way of living. Until we find a way to settle differences in a peaceful way the beauty pageant cliché of wanting "world peace" will be about as close as we can get.

@ricksamericana749 Жыл бұрын

An assessment of how many POWs, captured civilians, in addition to the non Japanese peoples under the authority of the Japanese military would be very useful to know. It would go a long way in explaining the urgency for the Allies to end the war.

@alexkalish8288 Жыл бұрын

I didn't see the picture but my father fought in manila in 45 so I heard stories.

@parrot849 Жыл бұрын

Ahm…, what slide? ( 15:04 )

@MarkSmith-js2pu 5 ай бұрын

Fire the interrupter

@uk4717 2 жыл бұрын

Operation Ichi-Go is an operation conducted by the Japanese Army on the Chinese mainland from April 17th to December 10th, 1944 during the Sino-Japanese War. It was the last major offensive of the Japanese Army, which caused the National Revolutionary Army to be hit hard and affected during the Chinese Civil War. However, on the other hand, the United States is also mediating the conclusion of the Double Tenth Agreement with Chiang Kai-shek in order to avoid a civil war. According to a study by Barbara W. Tuchman, the results of this operation had a more significant impact on the subsequent war situation than the Japanese had imagined, and had a decisive impact on Japan's fate. According to it, Franklin Roosevelt has consistently strongly trusted and supported Chiang Kai-shek since the beginning of the war, and encouraged him in the war against Japan so that he would not drop out of the Allies in a single peace with Japan during the Cairo Conference. However, he said that he changed his mind because the front of Chiang Kai-shek collapsed due to this operation. In fact, Chiang Kai-shek has not been invited to important Allied conferences ("Yalta Conference" and "Potsdam Conference") since then. According to the Stilwell document, Roosevelt said, "Can China win?" Stilwell said, "There is no choice but to eliminate Chiang Kai-shek." During the 1944 Hengyang battle, he could not sleep at night and twice. He says he thought about suicide. The American side also planned to assassinate Chiang Kai-shek, and three methods of "poisoning", "aircraft incident", and "pretending to be suicide" were considered, but it was canceled in 1944 due to changes in the international situation such as Burma. The successor that the United States envisioned is Sun Fountain. As Roosevelt's Chief of Staff George Marshall and General Joseph Stilwell have long insisted, Chiang Kai-shek's army is actually a demoralized and corrupt organization that does not form an army. It became clear that he had no desire or ability to fight with the United States and other Allied forces. As a result, President Roosevelt changed the scenario of the operation against Japan from the conventional bombing of Japan and other countries from the air bases of mainland China to the one that MacArthur and others claimed to occupy the islands of the Pacific Ocean one after another. China was dismissed at the Yalta Conference, and the Allied nation's footsteps were disturbed, with angry Chiang Kai-shek presenting a peace plan to Japan against the will of the United States. The Japanese Operation Ichi-Go attack left the National Revolutionary Army with 750,000 casualties. This caused the Kuomintang to lose to the Communist Party in the civil war. China would not have been dominated by the dictatorship Communist Party if it had made peace with Japan and cooperated in protecting it from communism.

@MarkSmith-js2pu 5 ай бұрын

I thought I’d learn something. Not