Nagasaki - what was really targetted and why?

[Athanasius377]

Back in the early 80s, the Japanese Imperial Army doctor who made the medical report of the atomic bombings to the Imperial Army general staff stated that the bombs actually saved Japan. In his opinion, an Allied land invasion would have ultimately succeeded, but at the cost of the majority of Japanese lives--far more than those lost in the atomic bombings.

I could not agree more. And I for one am grateful that the bombs were dropped. I suppose the way to look at the situation was it was the least worst option between dropping the atomic bombs or invading Japan. Consider the casualties the allies had sustained in driving the Japanese armed forces from Okinawa and Iwo Jima in the preceding months. The day the second bomb was dropped my grandfather having survived Tarawa and Saipan was on maneuvers rehearsing the invasion of Japan scheduled in the fall of 1945. Consider how long and costly such an invasion would have been. The estimates for casualties were in the millions and lasting until 1947. Moreover, I suspect a goodly number of people even on this forum would not be here today.

 

[Chris V++]

I haven't read all the comments but what is troubling is that they really didn't give the Japanese time to surrender prior to Nagasaki. The bombings were 3 days apart! Government doesn't work that fast.

On the other hand they considered it honorable to fight to the death, so maybe more survived in the long run had we waited. From a Christian perspective 3 days does seem rash even under those circumstances.

 

[Athanasius377]

Let me get this straight. A secret society based on freemasonry gains control of the most powerful top secret weapon ever to use against 0.0704% of the population already hated and despised in a country because everyone knows Freemasons hate Catholics. Seems legit.

 

[chevyontheriver]

Actually the U.S. started this policy during the War Between the States. 'Total War' they like to call it. They used it on their own people, the Southern people of the U.S. They would later use it on the American Indian.

Quort

Ah, Sherman's 'March to the Sea' would be an example of this. Wondering if it was 'policy' though, especially a policy that went from the 1860's through to Dresden and Nagasaki and culminated in 'Mutual Assured Destruction'. I don't know if it was policy, or lack of a policy, or expedience at several points in time. I just don't know. If it was policy, it was a bent and immoral policy.

 

[Albion]

Let me get this straight. A secret society based on freemasonry gains control of the most powerful top secret weapon ever to use against 0.0704% of the population already hated and despised in a country because everyone knows Freemasons hate Catholics. Seems legit.

If we listen closely to the narration in that video, there never is any real linkage between Freemasonry and that other outfit which may or may not exist, BUT the two were presented together at every opportunity AS THOUGH there was no question but that the two were composed of the same people and held the same goals.

 

[Quort]

Ah, Sherman's 'March to the Sea' would be an example of this. Wondering if it was 'policy' though, especially a policy that went from the 1860's through to Dresden and Nagasaki and culminated in 'Mutual Assured Destruction'. I don't know if it was policy, or lack of a policy, or expedience at several points in time. I just don't know. If it was policy, it was a bent and immoral policy.

It was certainly policy. Various 'orders' were given in various locations by union generals. They differed in degree, but all were common in one thing. They were to throw out the southern women, children, and old men from their homes. How many they killled in doing this is unknown. They were making war on the citizenry of the South. Such brave soldeirs.

Of course the north does not believe it would do such a thing. But they did. They didn't care if they burnt churches or homes. In the north's mind, the Southernor deserved it.

And if one were honest, he could see that it still takes place today. The Southernor is the evil person. His flag is evil. His history is evil. He and his history must be destroyed.

Stranger

 

[RDKirk]

I could not agree more. And I for one am grateful that the bombs were dropped. I suppose the way to look at the situation was it was the least worst option between dropping the atomic bombs or invading Japan. Consider the casualties the allies had sustained in driving the Japanese armed forces from Okinawa and Iwo Jima in the preceding months. The day the second bomb was dropped my grandfather having survived Tarawa and Saipan was on maneuvers rehearsing the invasion of Japan scheduled in the fall of 1945. Consider how long and costly such an invasion would have been. The estimates for casualties were in the millions and lasting until 1947. Moreover, I suspect a goodly number of people even on this forum would not be here today.

You won't find very many of anyone who had actually fought the Japanese--Chinese, Filipino, or American--who has a problem with how it turned out.

 

[RDKirk]

I haven't read all the comments but what is troubling is that they really didn't give the Japanese time to surrender prior to Nagasaki. The bombings were 3 days apart! Government doesn't work that fast.

On the other hand they considered it honorable to fight to the death, so maybe more survived in the long run had we waited. From a Christian perspective 3 days does seem rash even under those circumstances.

Three days was about the standard bomb attack tempo.

The point was to convince them that the atomic bomb was the new standard weapon in the US arsenal, and that it would be what was used from then on.

 

[RDKirk]

Ah, Sherman's 'March to the Sea' would be an example of this. Wondering if it was 'policy' though, especially a policy that went from the 1860's through to Dresden and Nagasaki and culminated in 'Mutual Assured Destruction'. I don't know if it was policy, or lack of a policy, or expedience at several points in time. I just don't know. If it was policy, it was a bent and immoral policy.

The bolded.

And even in the Cold War, we studiously avoided actually targeting civilian centers as such. We took specific effort to "shade" desired ground zeros away from population centers, chose actual warhead "overpressures" selectively, placed DGZs with a mind toward wind directions, so as to achieve the necessary effect on military targets with the least effect on population centers.

That didn't mean the population wasn't going to be disastrously affected, but it allowed the targeteers to sleep at night.

 

[RDKirk]

It was certainly policy. Various 'orders' were given in various locations by union generals. They differed in degree, but all were common in one thing. They were to throw out the southern women, children, and old men from their homes. How many they killled in doing this is unknown. They were making war on the citizenry of the South. Such brave soldeirs.

Of course the north does not believe it would do such a thing. But they did. They didn't care if they burnt churches or homes. In the north's mind, the Southernor deserved it.

And if one were honest, he could see that it still takes place today. The Southernor is the evil person. His flag is evil. His history is evil. He and his history must be destroyed.

Stranger

It's not "his" flag. There was a CSA flag, and there was a CSA battle flag.

As someone who spent half a lifetime under the Stars and Stripes, IMO every flag that stood against the Stars and Stripes on the battleground belongs in a museum today, and nowhere else.

Anyone who continues to stand under an enemy battle flag continues to be an enemy.

 

[chevyontheriver]

This thread has somewhat drifted to the question of how necessary bombing was.

Interesting though that may be, It wasn't the purpose of the thread:

which was to put clear doubt on why Nagasaki was chosen over many of greater military significance and even what was the real target in Nagasaki?

Begging The question as to whether militant Masonic atheists with power over planning deliberately targeted the growing and powerful centre of Christianity in Japan called " little Rome" . If it istrue they accepted wiping out POW camps as just " collateral damage"

Such is the morally bankrupt philosophy of relativism and atheism .

If true it was heinous.

In the drift of this thread it has come out that other Japanese cities were being firebombed with heavy civilian casualties. That such a thing might have happened would be a violation of 'Just War' theory, but if it did then there was no essential difference between firebombing Nagasaki and nuking the place.

The attitude that would have allowed nuking or firebombing Nagasaki was the problem. That is deeper than whatever decision to hit that city that day. And the attitude that in war you can do immoral things because the other guys do immoral things is scary. But it's a common attitude.

 

[chevyontheriver]

The bolded.

And even in the Cold War, we studiously avoided actually targeting civilian centers as such. We took specific effort to "shade" desired ground zeros away from population centers, chose actual warhead "overpressures" selectively, placed DGZs with a mind toward wind directions, so as to achieve the necessary effect on military targets with the least effect on population centers.

That didn't mean the population wasn't going to be disastrously affected, but it allowed the targeteers to sleep at night.

The accidental death of civilians in attacking a military objective is regrettable but collateral damage. Having the Cathedral of Nagasaki be ground zero and the military targets of the city be unaffected, well, there is something wrong there. They either missed their target (harbor) badly or they selected the target (cathedral) wrongly. They claim to have had a momentary clearing of the skies at the time of bomb drop to see their target.

 

[gideon123]

I think we must guard against historical revisionism. We cannot simply impose the standards of today on the world that existed in 1945.

The President of America faced a very big decision. To drop the atomic bombs - or not? We cannot ignore that fact that America had taken a huge number of casualties in both fronts ... Europe and the Pacific. Young men were coming home in body bags, or just dog tags. The President was aware that he needed to save American lives. So what would you do ... if you were told that a new weapon existed that could put an end to the slaughter? In the end, the decision was quite clear.

When the bombs were dropped, only one weapon had been tested in the USA
Scientists sat in bleachers at a distance of 10 miles from ground zero, wearing welding goggles on their faces. Nobody had the slightest idea what the effects of an atomic bomb really were. Raditation sickness was completely unknown. In fact the biologists Watson and Crick did not even discover DNA until 8 years after Nagasaki was bombed. No-one understood radiation and mutations. All those things would come much later.

There was a world war going on. If Hitler had got the A-bomb first, he would have dropped it on London, Moscow and New York. The outcome would have changed completely.

Conspiracy theories are not necessary. A careful study of history will tell you all that you need to know.

 

[chevyontheriver]

I think we must guard against historical revisionism. We cannot simply impose the standards of today on the world that existed in 1945.

...

There was a world war going on. If Hitler had got the A-bomb first, he would have dropped it on London, Moscow and New York. The outcome would have changed completely.

How immoral can one acceptably be in a war? Just as bad as the enemy?

 

[St. Helens]

MOD HAT ON

MOD HAT OFF​

 

[RDKirk]

The accidental death of civilians in attacking a military objective is regrettable but collateral damage. Having the Cathedral of Nagasaki be ground zero and the military targets of the city be unaffected, well, there is something wrong there. They either missed their target (harbor) badly or they selected the target (cathedral) wrongly. They claim to have had a momentary clearing of the skies at the time of bomb drop to see their target.

"Ground zero" hardly has a practical meaning when you're talking about gravity bombs.

I haven't seen any valid indication that the Cathedral of Nagasaki was the specific point marked as the desired ground zero (and I'm not sure there was such a concept at the time).

Gravity bombing is an entirely different concept from what people have become accustomed to these days. It's not about "point of aim" for a bomb so much as it's about "pattern" of the load. The bombadiers of Bock's Car and Enola Gay did not learn a new method of targeteering, they used their normal techniques. Taking measurements literally "on the fly" of air speed, altitude, wind speed, et cetera, the bombadier selects a point for his bombsight crosshairs that he'll release the bomb(s) so that the pattern is likely to fall across the intended target. And it was very much "hit or miss." Nobody actually designated a particular building as a target. They were lucky to hit the city.

When I was doing B-52 bomb scoring during the last couple of years of the Vietnam War, it was still just as bad. The B-52 loaded with conventional gravity bombs (fifty 500-pound bombs) had a destruction pattern basically the area of a football field (including sidelines and end zones) in a "football" shape. It was common for all that area of destruction to have totally missed the intended target. We had a standard statistic that it took 21 bombing missions to destroy one target. That was a lot of bombs that hit somebody unintended. If the Vietnamese thought we were bombing indiscriminately, it sure would have looked like it from their point of view. Statistically, we almost always missed the intended target.

And even by the Persian Gulf war, where I was again doing bomb scoring, although the laser-guided glide bombs and the image-steering Tomahawks were awesome "never miss what they were aimed at" weapons, the gravity bombs dropped during that war were absolutely just as dumb as they were in WWII.

 

[RDKirk]

Scientists sat in bleachers at a distance of 10 miles from ground zero, wearing welding goggles on their faces. Nobody had the slightest idea what the effects of an atomic bomb really were. Raditation sickness was completely unknown. In fact the biologists Watson and Crick did not even discover DNA until 8 years after Nagasaki was bombed. No-one understood radiation and mutations. All those things would come much later.

Much later. Go to 1:40 of this video. People had no clue back then.

 

[Chris V++]

Gravity bombing is an entirely different concept from what people have become accustomed to these days. It's not about "point of aim" for a bomb so much as it's about "pattern" of the load. The bombadiers of Bock's Car and Enola Gay did not learn a new method of targeteering, they used their normal techniques. Taking measurements literally "on the fly" of air speed, altitude, wind speed, et cetera, the bombadier selects a point for his bombsight crosshairs that he'll release the bomb(s) so that the pattern is likely to fall across the intended target. And it was very much "hit or miss." Nobody actually designated a particular building as a target. They were lucky to hit the city.

I may be wrong but weren't the A bombs detonated way above ground anyway, like 2000 feet?

 

[chevyontheriver]

"Ground zero" hardly has a practical meaning when you're talking about gravity bombs.

I haven't seen any valid indication that the Cathedral of Nagasaki was the specific point marked as the desired ground zero (and I'm not sure there was such a concept at the time).

Gravity bombing is an entirely different concept from what people have become accustomed to these days. It's not about "point of aim" for a bomb so much as it's about "pattern" of the load. The bombadiers of Bock's Car and Enola Gay did not learn a new method of targeteering, they used their normal techniques. Taking measurements literally "on the fly" of air speed, altitude, wind speed, et cetera, the bombadier selects a point for his bombsight crosshairs that he'll release the bomb(s) so that the pattern is likely to fall across the intended target. And it was very much "hit or miss." Nobody actually designated a particular building as a target. They were lucky to hit the city.

When I was doing B-52 bomb scoring during the last couple of years of the Vietnam War, it was still just as bad. The B-52 loaded with conventional gravity bombs (fifty 500-pound bombs) had a destruction pattern basically the area of a football field (including sidelines and end zones) in a "football" shape. It was common for all that area of destruction to have totally missed the intended target. We had a standard statistic that it took 21 bombing missions to destroy one target. That was a lot of bombs that hit somebody unintended. If the Vietnamese thought we were bombing indiscriminately, it sure would have looked like it from their point of view. Statistically, we almost always missed the intended target.

And even by the Persian Gulf war, where I was again doing bomb scoring, although the laser-guided glide bombs and the image-steering Tomahawks were awesome "never miss what they were aimed at" weapons, the gravity bombs dropped during that war were absolutely just as dumb as they were in WWII.

That bad, eh?

 

[RDKirk]

I may be wrong but weren't the A bombs detonated way above ground anyway, like 2000 feet?

Yes. But that was also true of some incendiary bombs (as well as chemical weapons). They have various kinds of timing mechanisms or altitude sensors.