Last Hiroshima bomber: "I'd do it again"

[mystieus]

Run time: 11:41 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B1o6XrB5fxk   Posted on YouTube: August 06, 2010 By YouTube Member: RTAmerica Views on YouTube: 147   Posted on DU: August 06, 2010 By DU Member: mystieus Views on DU: 1311

 
Today marks the 65th anniversary of the US bombing of Hiroshima. It was not only a turning point in World War II, but also a turning point in history as the world was introduced to the atomic bomb for the first time. RT sat down for an exclusive interview with Theodore Van Kirk, the last surviving member of the Enola Gay, the American bomber that dropped the atomic bomb on Hiroshima.

[YOY]

1. Every year we argue over this...

n.t.

[BeFree]

2. Y'know....

We did it once more and then didn't do it again.

Haven't done it since, and that is a good thing.

We could have done it again, and again, and you can bet bushco was itching to see what would happen, but somehow, someway, we haven't dropped another one.

Shoot, we wouldn't be here today if they had.

The peacenik liberal leftists succeeded in keeping us from blowing ourselves to smithereens. Take a bow, you enemies of the limbaughites.

[cleanhippie]

3. Many feel, that at the time, it was the lesser of two evils....

There were only two choices, drop the bomb or invade Japan.

Hard to say, 65 years later, which choice would have been the best.

[deutsey]

6. I knew a WWII vet who felt the A-bombs prevented him from taking part

in an invasion of Japan.

This man, who is now deceased, was a very liberal-minded person who opposed Bush and the invasion of Iraq. He said he and many of his friends would've shipped off to Japan (he had been mobilized to do so, in fact) when the bombs were dropped. I heard him once debate another WWII vet (a liberal and also a peace activist) about whether Hiroshima and Nagasaki were necessary. I don't think he changed his mind, but I remember him listening thoughtfully to what the other vet had to say.

[damntexdem]

16. No, very easy to say that nuking was better than invading.

The real question is whether the war could have been ended without either -- e.g., by the USSR coming in. And the USSR declaration of war on Japan apparently did have an effect in addition to the A-bombs. But I think that it is clear that the double A-bombing was essential (the second was needed because some in the Japanese government didn't believe that the U.S. had more than one bomb).

The target selection is another issue. Hiroshima was a port used by warships, so was a reasonable target. Nagasaki had little military value, other than being fairly close to where the U.S. invasion was aimed. It was selected because it had not been conventionally bombed, so could clearly show the A-bomb's effects; but that is not sufficient excuse. A different target should have been chosen for the second bombing.

Yes, the effects of the bombs were horrific -- but, then, that was the issue. The upshot is that the bombings saved millions of lives while ending a war that needed to be ended with an unconditional surrender.

[Xenotime]

4. I'm sorry. I just can't understand how somebody...

could bring that level of suffering to another human being(s). His actions were and still are inexcusable.

[smoogatz]

5. What about the level of suffering the Japanese inflicted

throughout the Pacific theater? What about the Rape of Nanking? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nanking_Massacre

What about the fact that the invasion of Japan would likely have resulted in hundreds of thousands of American deaths?

[KansDem]

8. My dad was in the Navy during WWII...

I wonder what might have happened had his ship been part of the invasion of Japan, had there been one, not to mention the Marines, Army, and Air Corps.

Some of us might not be here today...

[damntexdem]

19. And there is no guarantee that the invasion would have succeeded, even in establishing a beachhead.

[CLANG]

9. As the repukes say everytime we bring up dubya:

Two wrongs don't make a right. :crazy:

[damntexdem]

20. It's a stupid argument when the GOP brings it up.

But I won't bother to characterize it in this context. ;-)

[provis99]

13. those little children killed at Hiroshima caused the Rape of Nanking?

Way to blame an entire race for the actions of a few. Do you also feel if a black person commits a crime, all black people are bad?

[smoogatz]

21. Oh, for Christ's sake.

1.Attacks on civilian targets are a nearly universal feature of modern warfare. To the extent that attacks on civilian populations in aggressor nations bring about a faster end to those wars, are such attacks a good thing or a bad thing? Should we not have attacked German cities, say, despite the fact that Germany was conducting air raids over much of Great Britain, and through our inaction let the Nazis continue to kill more millions of Russians, Jews, Gypsies, homosexuals and disabled persons? This is Ethics 101--I'll let you figure it out. My feeling is that the responsibility for German and Japanese civilian deaths in WWII rests squarely on the heads of the political and military leadership of Germany and Japan, and to a lesser extent on the people who allowed them to remain in power.

2.The Japanese are not a race. They are a nationality and an ethnicity. If anything, support among the Japanese civilian population for the Emperor and the military during WWII was even more universal than German support for Hitler and the Nazis. Children excluded, of course. Also pets.

3.Way to cobble together a specious and stupid argument. Really--nice work.

[Plucketeer]

25. You can talk about what OUGHTA be,

or we can talk reality. With several nations racing to get an atomic weapon during WWII, WHO would you rather have been the target of the first ones? No matter who got one first, someone was gonna use one eventually. Can you see Hitler holding back if he'd had one at his disposal? What would things have been like if the Japanese had sent one against the gathering American invasion fleet? And how about the Russkees? Where would they have shown off their might to prove a point?
There was lots of speculation of what the results of these horrible bombs was going to be. It took a couple of REAL instances to demonstrate the carnage and suffering that would result. That's why we've not seen another use of them since.

[rasputin1952]

26. Nanking happened long before Hiroshima and Nagasaki...

so that invasion w/it's horror stories could not have caused the Rape of Nanking. However for the other side of the coin, the allies had learned how vicious the Japanese could be; Nanking, the Bataan Death March, the subjugation of the Philippines and other places where the Japanese extended themselves. The fight for Iwo Jima, Okinawa, Tarawa, Peleliu and other spots showed the Japanese to be a tenacious, often vicious adversary. Time after time, Army Navy and Marine intelligence reports came in showing tens of thousands of casualties compared to POW's taken in. The Japanese, under Tojo and military domination of politics, was willing to see Japan eradicated from the map rather than surrender. Hitler was the same way as the Soviets were closing in on Berlin, complete destruction rather than capitulation.

Most major Japanese cities had been fire bombed into cinders with far greater losses than either A-Bomb. Even after mass devastation, the military leaders demanded that women and children be trained to fight w/spears to try and turn back the invasion. Conservative casualty estimates were 1-2 million, the brunt of that number would be Japanese civilians. I cannot justify the bombings w/numbers of casualties, that is far too cold for me, but the truth of the matter is, the Japanese were going to take a long hard ride before the Japanese would even consider capitulation.Prior to either bombing, leaflets were dropped telling civilians to leave those cities, and even after the 2nd bomb at Nagasaki, incredibly enough, the talk around the government was, "they can't possibly have another one of those", in actuality, we didn't have another ready to go, it would have taken up to six weeks to build another bomb.

Just one more thing, after the Japanese surrendered, our forces worked hand in hand treating the casualties, th eUS poured money, medical expertise and building materials to help Japan after the war, it was not as if we turned our backs on them to fend for themselves. Europe and Japan were rebuilt under the Marshall Plan...something that we might have been so willing to do if 200,000 more troops were killed. As horrific as the bombs were, it can be argued that Japan may well have benefited from their use. If nothing else, those two attacks ended the war.

[Lars77]

18. You would'nt have had to invade Japan

Japan is an island with an unsustainable population, it was even then. A blockade (a terrible weapon as well) would've sufficed.

[drgonzosghost]

22. Well said! We'd be at war with them today had we not dropped...

those bombs. War is repugnant, it's the single worst thing we as humans engage in. The Japanese were savage butchers, rapists, and full on brigands back then. Painful truth, but truth none the less. I personally would have dropped them off the coast so everyone in Tokyo could see what we had and given them the opportunity to surrender. But you know what? It wouldn't have worked. Those people in that time followed a cult like devotion to both the emperor and to war itself. It's a very sad foot note in our history, but it had to be done folks....

[cleanhippie]

10. You don't think that the same amount of suffering would have occured

had the US invaded Japan? There is plenty of evidence that supports the supposition that the Japanese may have fought tooth and nail down to the last man, woman and child, causing death and suffering hundreds of times greater than was caused by the bombs.

Some say that dropping the bombs was the MOST humane action.

There certainly are valid arguments on both sides, don't be so quick to condemn one action over another.

[Name removed]

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[cleanhippie]

11. True, but.....

What would the pics look like had the US invaded Japan? WOrse?

[Name removed]

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[JJW]

14. He fears the day....

He fears the day terrorists get a nuclear weapon. But couldn't they make the same lame excuses that he makes for using it? It saves lives, BS.

Is there no limit to what we do to fellow human beings? Nuking innocent civilians. Nuking women, children, and infants.

[Name removed]

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[southmost]

17. what if we nuked Germany during WW2

instead of sending our troops to europe? would the sentiment be the same?

[Sherman A1]

24. Little issue with the time frame there, but

go ahead with the rant......

[theFrankFactor]

23. The only thing I agree with is the aquisition of nukes by rogues.

It will happen and our stupid fucking wars aren't going to prevent it.