No. I was pointing out the logical flaw in the absolutist position that 'he was not responsible because someone else would have done it'.
Last crew member of Enola Gay dies aged 93
- Thread starter Von Smallhausen
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No. I was pointing out the logical flaw in the absolutist position that 'he was not responsible because someone else would have done it'.
Soldato
Great post, hindsight is a wonderful thing, particularly 70 years after the event from people who have no experience of world war or even the time period.
Circumstances forced everyone (all sides) to do terrible things throughout the world wars and this is really no different. May he rest in peace.
Permabanned
Caporegime
No but that has already been explained above.
Comparing the man in the OP to a Nazi is rather disrespectful in my opinion.
So what was that rubbish about 'gassing the Jews' then?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reductio_ad_absurdum
Such an easy argument to use. Put the event in context. Bombing of civilian populations was done by both Allied and Axis forces in WW2, civilians on both sides were contributing to the war effort and civilian infrastructure was being used to create ships, planes, tanks, vehicles, weapons, ammo and supplies. It wasn't fair on the civilians who were bombed but it was the status quo at the time.
Bear in mind that if there were a nuclear conflict today the exact same thing would happen. You can't discriminately target soley military infrastructure in large conflicts.
Is there a difference between dropping atomic weapons on Hiroshima and Nagasaki and Nazi Germany or Imperial Japan dropping hi ex bombs on civilians ? Does a weapon have to be atomic for it to be mass murder ?
It's interesting that some believe Japan was about to surrender as they outright rejected to do so days before the bombs were dropped.
Man of Honour
No it's all grotesque. The problem is that the Atom bomb obliterated a lot more people in a lot less time - with prolonged negative effects of radiation and so on... This doesn't make it any less horrific than the gas chambers or the obliteration of cities and towns on both sides.
I guess in the grand scheme of things 10s of millions of people died owing to the war, so a fraction of that is less "bad". However, I hope I never live to see such a weapon used in force in my lifetime or in future generations.
We have an amazing ability of being so compassionate, and incredible creatures, but with a flip of a switch we don't really deserve the world that we have been given.
Soldato
And even after the first (Little Boy) had detonated.
Soldato
Japan only refused to surrender unconditionally, oddly enough when they did surrender they did so under the condition that the emporer remain in power. The allied forces literally gave them a better choice only after dropping the bombs.
Absolute cobblers, literally nonsense.
Battle of Luzon January 9 – August 15, 1945 Luzon, Philippines Philippines campaign (1944–45) ~37,870 (8,310 killed and 29,560 wounded)
Battle of Manila February 3 – March 3, 1945 Manila, Philippines Philippines campaign (1944–45) 6,575 (1,010 killed and 5,565 wounded)[3] Japan
Battle of Iwo Jima February 19 – March 26, 1945 Iwo Jima, Japan Volcano and Ryukyu Islands campaign 26,038 (6,821 killed and 19,217 wounded)
Battle of Okinawa April 1 – June 22, 1945 Okinawa, Japan Volcano and Ryukyu Islands campaign 51,429 (12,513 killed and 38,916 wounded)
You can see in fact that american casualties just taking atolls were horrendous and climbing. And there was no sign of the japanese surrendering, they were getting organised to defend every inch of the homeland. Why the hell should americans waste more of their soldiers attacking mainland japan when they had the capability to end it in two bombs?
As for japanese casualties in the bombing, the same number of people had been killed in Tokyo in an incendiary attack just before the nuke was dropped on Hiroshima. Had the war continued and invasion begun, that would have had to be repeated to almost every major town on the japanese mainland. So are you upset more about the fact of japanese deaths or that america was involved?
The Japanese very much reaped what they sowed. The Rape of Nanking killed three times as many people as the nuke and that was just using good old fashioned bayonets and bullets. They were savage and without mercy and had they had that kind of ability in China, China would not exist today.
On a side note, we have quite happily sat on our hands whilst 170,000 have been killed in Syria because we dont want to get our hands dirty, whereas this guy was in the thick of it. And we sit here and judge him? Not even funny.
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Don't be naive, chap.
Even if all of those blokes had refused to carry out the mission it would not have prevented the bombs being dropped.
However I seem to recall that they were volunteers for the job; like most service personnel, they put their hands up to be part of the elite doing their job.
Besides, they were all bomber crew with active service under their belts, area bombing axis cities, so what's the difference?
'No more bombers, one big bomb'.
The Japanese high command knew from the outset that attacking the americans in the pacific was simply delaying the inevitable - the reasons for attacking pearl harbor was to cripple american naval assets in the pacific, to allow japanese conquest of the far east to secure resources as fast as possible, in the hope that they'd be able to keep some of it in the face of overwhelming american military and industrial retaliation that was sure to follow.
WW2 remains a sad chapter in humanity and for good reason. But the problem with looking back on these events and judging them with hindsight and an experience of life untainted by the global threat of mechanised warfare, politics and indoctrination, is one lacking in context because it is something you have no true understanding of. No doubt having been alive through those particular events we would hold very different views on it.
Rather than condemning those who were of a different time and are now dead and gone, should we not think to the future and how to keep such events from occurring again?
Personally, I usually come up short when it comes to finding justifiable reasons to kill other human beings. On the whole it's an abhorrent thing to do, but when you don't really have any other choice, when the reality of the situation is kill or be killed, extrapolate that from the individual man to entire countries and you have the very worst of what we are capable of, where the individual has ceased to matter, where the industrial, technological and scientific ingenuity of man is bent on the destruction of other men... it has to end somewhere.
In short, making the other guy blink with the knowledge that you will destroy him utterly, then demonstrating your power to do so.
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Man of Honour
I stand corrected, thank you for your very gentle and friendly correction - clearly I was mistaken in my recollection (it's been a while since I looked into this and was always in the belief the war was waning at the time the bombs were dropped on Japan).
As for your last point, I find it atrocious about the way the west behaves in a lot of its foreign involvement. However, I'm not judging the pilot, I just find it all absolutely heart wrenching - and cannot feel anything but pity and regret for that pilot for having to do something so horrendous. Then again I'm sure all of them actually deep down felt beyond sad at what they had to do in the wars. This is why I could never be in the armed forces.
yeah i might have been a bit harsh, apologies. this just makes my blood boil, I should probably step away from the thread now.
Man of Honour
It's okay - I get passionate about things too 
Genuinely thank you for pointing out some reading, it's interesting.
Genuinely thank you for pointing out some reading, it's interesting. They same results as carpet/firebombing, of which we bombed lots of cities. innocents? Who do you think grows the crops, makes the weapons, replenishes troops etc in a world war, the idea of their being true civilians in a world war is bizarre. Even kids grow up to become soldiers in such a long war.
Also as said the estimates for a ground attack were staggering.
Man of Honour
Indeed.
Depressing.
Depressing.
Soldato
If he done that the Airforce would have probably hung him for disobeying orders.
These airforce crews had been bombing Japanese cities for years killing countless numbers of people so I guess that makes the whole US Airforce and Navy a bunch of murdering sociopaths?
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Soldato
What a strange way to rationalise the murder of women & children.
"This kid may grow up to fight us!".
Yes it may have been necessary (to reduce overall causality rates - maybe it was, but it doesn't make it desirable or the right thing to do. In a world of wrong choices, poor decisions & the outward offence against against humanity this was yet another example of gross death.
Regarding the point on it's necessity - there is no way you know if dropping the bomb on an unpopulated area but well within view would have had regarding forcing the issue of a surrender). A 'warning shot' could have achieved the same, but let's not pretend that they didn't want to test the bomb on a city.
Wiping out hundreds of thousands of innocent people, adults and children alike and he felt no remorse whatsoever? A good argument could be its necessity as an invasion of mainland Japan would've been a bloodbath. On the likes of the Eastern Front.