Historical Perspective

an interesting essay I read about the bombing's during WW2 said that the nuclear attack against japan was racially motivated.

We'd never considered using the bomb against the German's, and had always intended it for use agains the Japanese.


dunno how true that is, but an interesting perspective.

Interesting but strangely, it's so distanced by time that the plaque is almost meaningless. . . other than perhaps the most profound of messages which very few will receive: war is an abhorrent business better made obsolete.

Motivations

whistlelock said:

an interesting essay I read about the bombing's during WW2 said that the nuclear attack against japan was racially motivated.

We'd never considered using the bomb against the German's, and had always intended it for use agains the Japanese.


dunno how true that is, but an interesting perspective.

Click to expand...

I'm sure we would have nuked the Germans if they had shown much sign of putting up a fight like the Japanese did. German resistance collapsed pretty fast once the Allies got close to Germany, whereas with the Japanese...they had fought ferociously from the start and all the more so the closer the Allies got to Japan.

It's worth considering also that the Allied bombing campaign was instrumental in destroying the German Airforce (such as in Big Week in March 1944) and toward the end of the war effectively incapacitated much of their armed forces by wiping out their fuel supplies.

Even with Japan, conventional firebombing killed far more people than the two atomic bombs did.

It is also undoubtedly true that the A-bombs saved far more Japanese than they killed (assuming they caused an early surrender and the avoidance of a big Soviet attack on the northern islands):

See Richard Frank's Downfall

http://www.strategypage.com/bookreviews/227.asp

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Downfall

http://www.warbirdforum.com/downfall.htm