medavis43 Loc: Folkston, GA

My father was asked to work on the Manhattan Project. Of course they couldn't tell him what it was but he said he had a bad feeling about it and said no. Later he was glad he didn't even though it would have been a boost to his career. Many of the people who developed the bomb later went crazy. Terrible thing but we would have lost over a million men invading Japan. It was time for it all to end - worldwide.

Los-Angeles-Shooter Loc: Los Angeles

Another tipoff was that the engines were running as the plane backed up.

autofocus Loc: North Central Connecticut

Yeah, a nice song like many of their songs, but pure unrealistic utopia-babble...not gonna' happen, at least on this world.

bcheary Loc: Jacksonville, FL

Wow. Very interesting. Sure brought the Japanese to their knees. Thanks for sharing.

THEMRED7007

I knew a man in Tuscaloosa, AL, in 1955 when a student @ U. of ALA who owned a local radio station who had been on the Bataan Death March.

medavis43 Loc: Folkston, GA

The Japanese treated our service men much worse than the Germans did and more died in their POW camps. As for civilians who died, that happened on both fronts. We bombed the heck out of Germany and killed a great many civilians. Our fathers were there. It was brutal.

pounder35 Loc: "Southeast of Disorder"

Exactly. A ground invasion would have cost many more lives than the bombs did. And too, many of the lives would have been Americans. They picked the wrong fight. Besides, after all the R/D we needed to make sure it worked. Apparently the German scientist we "borrowed" knew their stuff. :thumbup:

BamaTexan Loc: Deep in the heart of Texas

I have a first cousin whose body is still on Luzon, he didn't make it all the way from Bataan. His mother grieved until the day she died.

gmcase Loc: Galt's Gulch

I have no sympathy for the Japanese butchers of WW2 but I was watching the film prior to taking the boat ride out to the Arizona Memorial and noted the large number of Japanese tourists there. I didn't see any giggling but observed an obvious large dose of sobriety as the film played the attack on Pearl. I did see a couple of young Japanese children running around and giggling out at the memorial but they were too young to intentionally being disrespectful. All my uncles fought in WW2 in the Pacific. One was one of the last Arizona survivors living until he passed away 2 years ago. His ashes were entombed there about a year after his death.

The Japanese, collectively as a nation, were butchers and prone to untold violence. There are other races that seem to be violent no matter where they are if in any significant numbers. The Japanese seem to have changed but not others.

medavis43 Loc: Folkston, GA

I think WWII was a sobering event for much of the world. Unfortunately it didn't stop people like Stalin or Pol Pot from murdering their people but I think people were very surprised when they realized what was really happening or had happened. The Holocaust is a good example.

pauleveritt Loc: Erie, Colorado

This argument has gone on since the end of WWII. I have studied this conflict in detail for over 40 years.

If I kill you with a rock or if I zap you with a high tech death ray, are you any MORE dead with the death ray than the rock? No. The atomic bombs PALE in comparison to the death tolls of the fire bombings of Tokyo slums (178,000) or Dresden (135,000). The method of destruction is pretty irrelevant to the dead. Yes, the radiation does linger unlike a fire bomb.

I have asked the question REPEATEDLY over the years and NO ONE has been brave enough to answer me: What is the difference between the German invasion of Poland in 1939 and the United States invasion of Iraq in 2003? The citizens of Japan ALLOWED their government to invade China and commit horrible acts there without staging a revolution. When the bombers flew overhead and rained destruction on their cities, still no revolution took place. Even after Nagasaki an attempted coup took place in Japan to keep the Emperor from surrendering. As Harry Turman said, the estimates of 1,000,000 additional US dead in an invasion of the Japanese home islands, (paraphasing) What would I say to the families of the dead if I had a weapon that could have ended the war and did not use it?

That is the question that history raised. These people are martyrs to the nuclear age and probably helped prevent WWIII during the Cuban missile crises. Global Nuclear War was prevented by ONE political officer on the Soviet missile sub under attack by a US destroyer. Yes, folks, ONE guy prevented that sub from launching its missiles. That is how close WE came to having nuclear detonations on US soil.

Think about this in the context of Nagasaki.

autofocus Loc: North Central Connecticut

I remember reading some time ago that when Japan was warring their way through China it was not unusual for the Japanese soldiers to toss Chinese babies up in the air and catch them on their bayonets. I never forgot that..pretty damn sick. I think the Chinese to this day really despise Japan.

pauleveritt Loc: Erie, Colorado

I have seen that footage. However, when I was in Beijing in 1988 there were an large number of Mitsubishi buses carrying all of us tourists around. Saw lots of Japanese products. I think they have gotten over most of it.

gmcase Loc: Galt's Gulch

As do the older Koreans. This is similar to the mentality of the knock out game currently being practiced in some of our cities. Senseless violence and murder and few stand up to it in the media.

medavis43 Loc: Folkston, GA

Germany did not invade Poland with any good intentions for its people. They thought the Poles sub-human who needed to be wiped out or be dominated. The were also on a land grab and power grab mission as evidenced by their other actions.

No matter how misguided anyone thinks the US was for invading Iraq, it was done on the basis of lots of false information about WMD - even the Iraqi generals didn't know the truth. And putting that aside since it's such a hot point of discussion, I believe our aim was to make life better for Iraq. Bring democracy and get rid of a tyrannical dictator.

That's a difference to me - right or wrong and I'm not interested in arguing that here.