Little Boy makes a lot of noise and changes our society

Oh, and once again Boots spouts off racism BS that gets completely shredded by, get this, FACTS. There's something you only see 3 or 4 times a day.

 

That's also a good point. The evident destruction from the bombs in Japan made it clear that just having the bombs was enough of a threat. No one needed to drop one to prove anything (with the exception of Kruschev's first test perhaps).

 

Yes you are right about the time of the testing.

 

And therefore...we could not have dropped one on Germany even if we had wanted to.
Considering the total war philosophy of USAAF Gen. Lemay and RAF Bomber commander Harris, if we had possessed a functional atomic bomb prior to Germany crumbling on all fronts in the spring of 1945, they would have wanted to use it.

 

Which then calls into question your entire premise. If you want to disagree about the legitimacy of dropping in, you're entitled to your opinion. But the basis you're using is wrong.

And the whole "the threat to drop one should have been enough" is great in hindsight. But we only had enough weapon's grade U-235 for the test, plus the two we actually dropped. The timeline for Operation Olympia, the invasion of the homeland of Japan, was scheduled to start prior to our ability to have created a fourth bomb.

Because of all these factors, the thought was a demonstration of the bomb probably wouldn't have been enough to convince Japan to surrender. It's doubtful one test bomb, one demonstration bomb and one dropped on a Japanese city by itself would have been enough.

 

statrat, that's absolutely correct. If there was something we could have done that would have allowed us to enter Berlin first, ahead of the Russians, we would have done it.

 

Umm, boots, you're forgetting the 2d part of that admission, you know, where you say: "and therefore the entire factual basis which I claimed as proof the bomb was dropped because of racism was proven wrong, and I have once again been proven for the ignorant, irresponsible, race-baiting twit that I am."

 

Boots, you are in rare form today. Please do us all a favor and STFU.

 

It doesn't take long for you to call someone a name does it?
This country had a race problem then stooge. We imprisioned Japanese Americans. We destroy people of color, whether its enslaving Blacks, Stealing gold and land from Mexicans, giving small pox to native americans.
But this about the atomic bomb. As far as the technology on the bomb is concerned, it could've been speeded up. One bomb was made of uranium, the other plutonum.
Calling me a name isn't changing the fact that this country was fucked up racially speaking in 1945. It also doesn't change the fact that the argument for dropping the bombs was bullshit.
If we wanted to save so many lives, why did we drop the second one? Japan had seen what the first one could do.
When it comes to questions about race, there are people here who can't have a conversation without name calling. Grow the fuck up.

 

I don't think anyone is denying there was racism in America during WWII.

There are compelling documentaries about our propaganda posters and films of the day, which vilified the Japanese much more so than the Germans because the Germans looked a lot more like us than did the Japanese. The more someone is unlike us, the easier it is to create the "us vs. them" mentality you need for people to rally around.

The "Sports Century" profile of Jackie Robinson reported that German prisoners of war had more rights on military bases on U.S. soil than did black American soldiers when Robinson served, including the freedom to enter officers' clubs. I found that interesting.

 

alley -

My father, whose ship was on-station at Okinawa for the invasion of the home islands, always said he thought that the second bomb was completely unnecessary, and that the first one probably was. He -- along with a lot of Navy and AF types -- believed the submarine blockade and air bombardment would have forced a surrender anyway. (Not to say that the air bombardment wasn't horrific on its own self, but that's a different topic.) So the notion didn't necessarily start after war's end. My father also was in favor of dropping both bombs, purely as revenge for Pearl Harbor.
Strange times.

 

Which is what I said. Yet, I'm a race baitor? Get the fuck out of here.
I don't think we needed to drop either one. And once we dropped one, that was sufficient enough for surrender. There was no need, in my opinion, to drop the second one.