A WW 2 Thread

[Shycte]

First, The A-bombs were the best thing that happend in WWII. It made Japan draw out quickly as few dead men as possible.

Also, IMO. All the shit that was throwed at Germany was deserved. They started it, everything after was selfdefence. Well, not really.

If you think about it, WWII is France and England fault. If they had accepted USAs deal instead of puching the Versai peace so hard Germany wouldn't been hit so hard by the Great deprassion. Then maybe Hitler wouldn't been elected because the Weimar Republic would have been able to contol the country better.

 

[Ph33nix]

WW2 was a total war in in total their are no civilians both sides bomber civilian targets the allies where no more evil for that then the Germans and Japanese who both bombed civilian targets both fire bombed cities and the firebombings of Tokyo where a retaliation (though be it several yeas later) for the rape of Nam king is that how you spell it? i could look it but i don;t care enough. During the battle of Britain the Germans bombed British cities in retaliation the allies bomber German cities once they could everyone did it get over it and the A-bombs saved lives conservative estimates of total casualties for both sides on an invasion of japan where over 2 million. let me say that again 2,000,000 casualties more. and the more realistic numbers put the causalities over 10 million, 10,000,000. Any one who says if we had landed troops the Japanese is kidding themselves the Japanese considered surrender so dishonorable they would never surrender their homeland to an invading force they surrendered because they thought we had hundreds of A-Bombs ready to annihilate them with but a few aircraft.

 

[Ph33nix]

Well would you prefer a long drawn out a terrible war? or one that was ended quickly as possible with minimal loss of life? i considered that with the whole A-bomb concept, its not nice, but its true.

I heard that the japanese were actually surrendering before they dropped the bombs. Not 100% sure, but sounds possible.

see above (p.s. they wern't)

 

[Ph33nix]

Well would you prefer a long drawn out a terrible war? or one that was ended quickly as possible with minimal loss of life? i considered that with the whole A-bomb concept, its not nice, but its true.

I heard that the japanese were actually surrendering before they dropped the bombs. Not 100% sure, but sounds possible.

Punch whoever told you that

1940's Japan? surrendering to anything but an ultimate weapon of destruction? thats almost laughable

I don't know, they were running low on everything. So it would have been quite hard to actually fight back any more. And in every country, you get a slightly different version of history. In USA, I'm sure the use of the A-Bombs are justified more than in other countries. I'm not saying that Japan would have necessarily have surrendered, just saying, that you are being taught to think there was no chance they would surrender.

School children where sharpening sticks for bunji pits on the breaches the japs would have fought with pointy sticks and jagged rocks till they ran out of those and and just attacked with there fists.



On the other hand, using the nukes caused the cold war. And it's one of the reason why we've got enough weapons in the world to destroy it hundreds of times. The reductions that are happening mean absolutely nothing, if a nuclear war would start.

sorry for the 3 streight post i'm not sure how to copy quotes in.

 

[Bulletinmybrain]

I wouldn't put the blame sololy on the A-bombs for causing the cold war, the growing sphere of influence using NATO is scary for a country everybody practically saw as evil. The bombs pressured russia to work on their own, but the build-up of military arms and the warsaw satellite countries were from the pressure of NATO, as to give them buffer for them to fight through before they reach their land.

That said, the Russian response in my opinion is unjust. While lives maybe lives it is horribly manipulative considering from other counts there was only 1 gun for 10 people or something like that. When you carelessly throw untrained soldiers at the enemy lines with a lack of weaponry and such to really survive? It doesn't show that germans are brutal, just that the Russian government really didn't care for its people lives.

 

[Agent Larkin]

I blame WW1 personally. Sure you can claim all sides were evil but that is because it was a total war between industrialised nations. The A-Bomb was a regrettable but necessary alternative to Operation: Spartan (I may have the op name wrong but I think it was that). The fact that civilians died is a fact of war. There is collateral damage. Yes POW's were treated badly but you forget the good cases like Erwin Rommel purposefully hiding the identity of Jewish POW's.

 

[PurpleRain]

I heard a child's account of Dresden. It really shows how everyone who fights a war is giving themselves to evil. Nazi, British Empire. There is difference to the dead.

 

[Private Custard]

As with all WWII related threads, I'll say what I usually say.

Torrent 'The World At War', watch all 26 episodes and then realise there's nothing left to waste time debating on a forum that's usually highly flammable.

 

[Scrittore]

The assumption that deploying the atomic bomb was a necessary evil seems to rely upon the notion that a conventional invasion stood as the only alternative. Once the Allies had destroyed Japan's ability to wage offensive war it was only a matter of time before they surrendered, either to the USSR or the Western Allies. Japan's reliance on mainland Asia for its industrial raw material meant that the embargoing of certain goods should have prevented them from reestablishing their armed forces, such an embargo would have been fairly simple for the Allies to enforce given their overwhelming arial and navel superiority.

I don't have evidence one way or the other regarding the possibility of a Japanese surrender at the time of the bombing, but any willingness to face impossible odds in 1945 might very easily have faded by 1946.

Regarding the question of atrocities, it's true that they were committed by both sides of the engagement; even in the struggle against Facism, life was never as simple as Good vs Evil. That said, I'm overwhelmingly certain that the Allies were the preferable victors, the emergence of Fascist empires in Europe and Asia would have been one of history's greatest tragedies.

 

[Scrittore]

No, the Japanese were training children to charge at invading allied soldiers in suicidal runs, and people were killing there own children to prevent the Americas from getting near them. Japan never really had a big resource base in the first place so a lack of resources would not have been forced them to surrender.

Well absolutely, it's a very good point that you've made. I should say that I'm not unaware of the preparations, the quite ludicrous preparations, that the Japanese were making to resist an invasion. But despite those preparations I think it's worth pondering how long an entire society can be expected to maintain what was essentially a psychotic attitude. It appears that they were ready for a sort of glorious last stand, a readiness that would be very difficult to maintain indefinitely with the resources that they possessed; you must remember that prior to the war Japan enjoyed access to the mineral and coal deposits in northern Korea and Manchuria that made possible what industry they possessed, as well as various territories in China.
It was unwise of me to offer '46 as a hypothetical surrender point, it's probable that they would have maintained their position for far longer, into the '50s I suppose, by which point the deprivation of industrial material may have had an even worse impact than the atomic bombs, which would of course render the blockade theory useless as a "humane alternative" to the bomb. Of course, not to undercut my own suggestion, it might not have taken so long.

Although, as you perhaps suggest, they may have clung on indefinitely, in which case the whole idea is, I admit, built on sand.

Well at least you will admit that. Unlike some other people who will throw claims at you stating that there are secret documents or something that prove that Japan was going to surrender and demonize the Atomic attacks as the greatest crimes in human history while simply dismissing any evidence suggesting they are wrong.

Cheers mate, I suppose it's a question of emotional investment? This is hardly a pet theory of mine, it just occurred to me as I read the thread.

 

[Sark]

Lets not forget German and Japanese human experimentation. I remember stories of skin being stretched to make lamp shades and I won't even go into the fun details with what the Japanese have done.