My take on the Hiroshima bombings and the buildup to it

this was my comment to someone elses blog, i than realized it should have its own spot on my blog so somethings posted below may seem like a reply. it was.

I would just like to start out with this

I am an American
I am 21 years old
I live in NY
I want bush gone as much if not more than everyone else...


NOW that that is said I can continue.

I do not think I have seen so many factually wrong statements in 1 blog ever, and I mean on both sides of the fence and I read all 600 + comments.

first off FDR did not drop the bomb, he was dead at that point in time so to all the 30-50 people still bitching about FDR dropped the bomb (either way you lean) your wrong. Truman was president at the time.

To all the people attempting to compare the bomb to 911. There is a HUGE difference (depending on which fact line you want to follow) {doesn’t matter which fact line there is no comparison, 911 was more atrocious on a humanitarian level}

If you think it was an inside job, than obviously it is not the same, jet some of you are trying to say it is, that would only work if we dropped the nukes on D.C. and NYC, which obviously didn’t happen

If you think bin laden did do it, we were not at war, meaning no one in the civilian sector should have known to be careful and therefore cannot be compared...try again


Now for the fun part, comparing how it IS similar (talking humanitarian, not logic now)

To all those people saying that 911 was not like it cause 3000 died and that’s it. Yet some of you are also trying to claim that the hurt people are also included, so then you need to change that number to 10K (still a lot less I know let me finish) you are forgetting that the relief workers in NYC (myself included) are now coming down with different respatory
Infections and cancers. THEREFORE the deaths and causalities are continuing to this day. For all we know on a humanitarian level, the 911 attacks could be close to as deadly (using those "facts)


Some of you are probably wondering where I was going with this.

My point is that "facts" are as good as the sources they come from which are only as good as the motive behind these "facts"

500 years ago it was a fact that the world was flat

1000 years ago it was a fact that the earth was the center of the universe; today these "facts" are obviously laughable.


NOW onto where I stand based on family records text book records and internet records from both sides of the isle now that I have given you the background of my logic.


DID FDR know that the japs were on their way to Pearl Harbor?

Its not as clear cut as that, the better question would be

DID FDR have knowledge that the japs were planning to do something to us on our soil. The answer to THAT question is yes. FDR had reports that the peace talks were not working and FDR was aware that an attack was probable.
(Expand here, sources)

DID the bombs end the war or was the war over?
The Jap culture has ALWAYS been fight to the death, anyone ever hear of hari cari? For those of you who haven’t, in its simplest form it means suicide, mainly suicide due to shame or to keep from being captured. So what this means is that based on 1000 years of culture, one could not expect surrender from the japs.

ALSO if you would look back to 1941 when we were having peace talks with the japs, they went back on their word (again this all goes with what “facts you would like to follow”) and attacked anyway. Based on this information, even if the japs did claim they were ready to surrender, how could we be 100 % sure that
A - They were telling the truth about surrendering and:
B - That they were not currently capable of getting their bomb ready yet?

WE already had proof that they were in fact using “dirty” bombs. For those who don’t know what that is it is generally a term used to describe any conventional bomb which has unconventional properties, such as nuclear or biological amenities.

Is it so difficult to believe that if they could create small scale dirty bombs that they were incapable of making a larger scale dirty bomb? (IE. Nuke) Not at all?

So WHAT IF Japan surrendered and started up with the peace talks (see pre 1941) and than commenced to drop their bomb on say D.C or NYC or both? They did the exact thing in the past (Pearl Harbor) what’s to say they wouldn’t have done it again?

And now for my comments on the fact that we bombed a “civilian city”

First off we had a list of 5 places to bomb, 2 were obviously hiro. and naga

I will take from the official top secret report at the time the location scouting:
Target Committee, Los Alamos, May 10-11, 1945

Minutes of the second meeting of the Target Committee
Los Alamos, May 10-11, 1945
Source: U.S. National Archives, Record Group 77, Records of the Office of the Chief of Engineers, Manhattan Engineer District, TS Manhattan Project File '42-'46, folder 5D Selection of Targets, 2 Notes on Target Committee Meetings.



(1) Kyoto - This target is an urban industrial area with a population of 1,000,000. It is the former capital of Japan and many people and industries are now being moved there as other areas are being destroyed. From the psychological point of view there is the advantage that Kyoto is an intellectual center for Japan and the people there are more apt to appreciate the significance of such a weapon as the gadget. (Classified as an AA Target)
(2) Hiroshima - This is an important army depot and port of embarkation in the middle of an urban industrial area. It is a good radar target and it is such a size that a large part of the city could be extensively damaged. There are adjacent hills which are likely to produce a focusing effect which would considerably increase the blast damage. Due to rivers it is not a good incendiary target. (Classified as an AA Target)
(3) Yokohama - This target is an important urban industrial area which has so far been untouched. Industrial activities include aircraft manufacture, machine tools, docks, electrical equipment and oil refineries. As the damage to Tokyo has increased additional industries have moved to Yokohama. It has the disadvantage of the most important target areas being separated by a large body of water and of being in the heaviest anti-aircraft concentration in Japan. For us it has the advantage as an alternate target for use in case of bad weather of being rather far removed from the other targets considered. (Classified as an A Target)
(4) Kokura Arsenal - This is one of the largest arsenals in Japan and is surrounded by urban industrial structures. The arsenal is important for light ordnance, anti-aircraft and beach head defense materials. The dimensions of the arsenal are 4100' x 2000'. The dimensions are such that if the bomb were properly placed full advantage could be taken of the higher pressures immediately underneath the bomb for destroying the more solid structures and at the same time considerable blast damage could be done to more feeble structures further away. (Classified as an A Target)
(5) Niigata - This is a port of embarkation on the N.W. coast of Honshu. Its importance is increasing as other ports are damaged. Machine tool industries are located there and it is a potential center for industrial despersion. It has oil refineries and storage. (Classified as a B Target)
(6) The possibility of bombing the Emperor's palace was discussed. It was agreed that we should not recommend it but that any action for this bombing should come from authorities on military policy. It was agreed that we should obtain information from which we could determine the effectiveness of our weapon against this target.
B. It was the recommendation of those present at the meeting that the first four choices of targets for our weapon should be the following:
a. Kyoto
b. Hiroshima
c. Yokohama
d. Kokura Arsenal


If you turn your attention to number 2 – Hiroshima, this target was chosen due to its LARGE ARMY DEPOT, Hiro was a city not unlike the city in Los Alamos at the time, yeah there were civilians there but they were all working towards building up products for the war.
In the same sense we can liken it to if they dropped a bomb on Detroit at the time which had turned its car factories into tank and plane engine factories. Yes they were civilians but they were in fact working for the reason of ending the war by building tanks and other materials needed by the troops on the front.

As you can see in the official minutes of the day, they chose grounds which would maximize damage to the WAR EFFORT, not to just blindly attack cities for the reason of attacking cities.


So let’s recap

1 – FDR did not drop the bombs; he was dead at the time
2 – The only way one can compare 911 to the bombs is due to long term health effects. Any other comparison is comparing apples to oranges.
3 – Pearl harbor was not an inside job, we did know an attack was coming sooner or later, and we may have assumed that it would have been at Pearl Harbor, but other than that we could not have expected the attack, we could have moved quicker but that’s about it.
4 – The Japs were NOT ready to surrender and even if they did how could we trust them? (Read point 3)
5 – We did NOT bomb the cities chosen to maximize civilian causalities, but rather we bombed the locations we did to minimize military output.