13 Responses to US drops atomic bomb on Japan, August 6, 1945

1. Charlie says:

   August 7, 2008 at 7:32 am

   Hiroshima WAS a Japanese army base. The entire nation had been made an army base. Japan refused to heed multiple warnings about a new devastating type of bomb that would be used if they did not surrender, including flyers dropped over the city.
   The Japanese imperialist war machine would have caused the death of an estimated 1,000,000 if we had been forced to invade the Japanese mainland, including those of our very own fathers and grandfathers, who had already made a huge sacrifice.
   Yes, this is a sad day that is not remembered annually as it should be, but it is important to remember that the U.S. did not start a war that needed to be ended. We should take pride in knowing that the USA produced the men and women who did end it.

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2. Ama says:

   August 7, 2008 at 7:54 am

   I’m not Japanese, but according to their perspective, the US cut off their food supply (most of their food is still imported), leaving them no choice but to make war.
   Plus, their leader was out-numbered in a vote to start the war, even though he knew from the beginning it wouldn’t end in their favor, he felt obligated to go with the crowd (a collectivist culture thing).
   Nonetheless I’m proud to be an American, and I’m sure we did what seemed best at the time.

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3. Cahwyguy - Daniel says:

   August 7, 2008 at 9:01 am

   There are two other articles of interest buried on the front page.
   First, the death of Hiram Johnson — as I recall, he had singnificant involvement in the formation of Santa Monica.
   Second, the opening of the GM plant in Van Nuys, making Los Angeles second to Detroit in auto production… as well as the opening of a Jergens plant. Since then, of course, both plants have closed, and the Valley is no longer the center of manufacturing it once was.

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4. jay says:

   August 7, 2008 at 9:12 am

   Japan started this war. Truman gave the Japanese an ultimatum describing the new weapon which the Japanese government ignored. Thus the blame for Hiroshima and Nagasaki rests on the Japanese. They could have surrendered and saved themselves this disaster. Also no one seems to remember “the Death march” or “the rape of Nanking”. They had it coming.

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5. Robert says:

   August 7, 2008 at 9:29 am

   The article about the Crosby Research Foundation caught my eye. Bing Crosby helped build the bomb? I wonder what work they were doing that caused all those explosions out in the desert?

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6. Jon says:

   August 7, 2008 at 12:20 pm

   While the bombs caused horrific casualties and suffering, they (along with the Soviets declaring war on Japan on the 8th) ended the war, thus preventing us having to invade the Home Islands later that year. I always took personal interest in that fact because my father was an 18 year old Army soldier in the Phillipines who undoubtedly would have taken part in the invasion, and based on casualty estimates (remember Iwo Jima and Okinawa?) could have very likely not made it. Since I was born some years after the war I appreciate the fact that he became part of the occupation forces, not the invasion forces. Also, the mention of Richard Bong, our top fighter ace in WWII, dying in the plane crash deserves note.

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7. H says:

   August 7, 2008 at 3:20 pm

   Fascinating post, thank you.
   In contrast to such an event as the dropping of the A-Bomb, the story about the combination clothes washer-dishwasher-potato peeler-ice-cream maker machine was a hoot. Can’t imagine why they didn’t sell a million of those.

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8. Dave Kerr says:

   August 7, 2008 at 3:24 pm

   The lesson of Hiroshima and Nagasaki is that there must
   never be another Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

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9. Nathan says:

   August 7, 2008 at 5:32 pm

   My father was stationed at Barksdale Field waiting to get shipped out to Japan (he flew B-17s over the Caribbean looking for U-boats; by ’45 there were precious few of those). All at once they were told to stand down. No-one knew why. They were on line at the mess hall and the German POW working at the mess hall, Wili, said “You dropped a new kind of bomb on Japan.” Nobody ever figured out how the German POW knew about this before any of the brass did…
   So I guess I owe some debt to the strategic decision of August 45 because who knows if my father would have come back alive. I might never have been born and had one of those potato peelers that wash my clothes and dishes at the same time!

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10. Bryan T says:

    August 7, 2008 at 8:31 pm

    Even if we regard the atomic bombing of Hiroshima as militarily necessary, there is absolutely no reasonable justification for bombing Nagasaki three days later. Japan was ready to surrender unconditionally at that time, and the U.S. commanders ignored it in order to test the new bomb design.

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11. GEAH says:

    August 8, 2008 at 12:19 am

    “Even if we regard the atomic bombing of Hiroshima as militarily necessary, there is absolutely no reasonable justification for bombing Nagasaki three days later.”
    Payback’s an itch, Bryan T.
    Perhaps Japan should have considered the possibility of retribution *before* pulling a sneak attack on Pearl Harbor. It would have saved a lot of trouble all around.

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12. kierra says:

    April 16, 2009 at 5:56 am

    this is really intresting!!i love it !!

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13. arthur schmidt says:

    June 24, 2009 at 10:50 am

    was there a richter scale reading after the blasts what were they?

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