With the last man,Enola Gay slips beneath the sea of history

[Gaiserin]

Misread that then, didn't notice the 40,000 "military personals in total."

Moving back to the actual topic I suppose, since nothing left to discuss on the war crime topic.

[Washington Resistance Army]

Eh, I don't feel like it's actually that off topic given the man who died was involved in the operation.

[Ulrenon]

If you think they were two civilian targets you have no understanding of the events. Hiroshima was home to a Japanese army group and some 40,000 or more people who died in the blast were Imperial military personnel.

Any evidence to point that out would be appreciated.

To point out less debatable war crime, let's look at fire bombing of Tokyo.
http://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/firebombing-of-tokyo

But I mean, they were just dirty Japs so I guess they deserved it, am I right?

Do we really need to sit here and cite Japanese war crimes to show how far they were willing to go?

Attacks on Hong Kong, Singapore, and Pearl Harbor

Mass Killings(an estimated 3-10 million people)

Human Experimentation and Biological Warfare

Here, that's only the beginning; have the full page.

The Japanese did more damage than they received. They are lucky the Americans got to them before the Soviets, as there would have probably been many revenge killings by the Soviets(maybe not, they mainly did it to Germany for an obvious reason. But it's possible~).

[Tuthina]

Any evidence to point that out would be appreciated.

To point out less debatable war crime, let's look at fire bombing of Tokyo.
http://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/firebombing-of-tokyo

But I mean, they were just dirty Japs so I guess they deserved it, am I right?

Do we really need to sit here and cite Japanese war crimes to show how far they were willing to go?

Attacks on Hong Kong, Singapore, and Pearl Harbor

Mass Killings(an estimated 3-10 million people)

Human Experimentation and Biological Warfare

Here, that's only the beginning; have the full page.

The Japanese did more damage than they received. They are lucky the Americans got to them before the Soviets, as there would have probably been many revenge killings by the Soviets(maybe not, they mainly did it to Germany for an obvious reason. But it's possible~).

A somewhat questionable statement since those who would bear the most grudge against Japanese at the time would probably be Americans (on top of the whole undeclared war thing) as well as those from Oceania. After all, given how resilient Japanese troops had proved to be, after years of bloody grinding in godforsaken South Pacific islands, you will be a little bit off when you see another Japanese as well.

Though most of the time, the Allies had better unit disciplines than the Red Army and (especially) Japanese soldiers, so atrocities from the former tend to be less severe, although still present.

[Ulrenon]

Do we really need to sit here and cite Japanese war crimes to show how far they were willing to go?

Attacks on Hong Kong, Singapore, and Pearl Harbor

Mass Killings(an estimated 3-10 million people)

Human Experimentation and Biological Warfare

Here, that's only the beginning; have the full page.

The Japanese did more damage than they received. They are lucky the Americans got to them before the Soviets, as there would have probably been many revenge killings by the Soviets(maybe not, they mainly did it to Germany for an obvious reason. But it's possible~).

A somewhat questionable statement since those who would bear the most grudge against Japanese at the time would probably be Americans (on top of the whole undeclared war thing) as well as those from Oceania. After all, given how resilient Japanese troops had proved to be, after years of bloody grinding in godforsaken South Pacific islands, you will be a little bit off when you see another Japanese as well.

Though most of the time, the Allies had better unit disciplines than the Red Army and (especially) Japanese soldiers, so atrocities from the former tend to be less severe, although still present.

A fair point.

Douglas Mac Arthur, the man who was in charge of Japan temporarily after the war, obviously had a bit of a bone to pick with the people. While he did a few good things(rebuilding, telling the Japanese their Emperor wasn't a god, etc) it was generally accepted he had a slight bone to pick with the Japanese. While he kept his occupation relatively civil it was clear he wasn't too comfortable being surrounded by Japanese in the time; they tend to fly out of bushes and stab you.

He was, however, relatively respectful towards the Japanese population. If he had shit to say he kept it to himself. I'm sure he respected the Japanese as a fighting force and as a unified nation, but they were still the enemy.

[Fascist Republic Of Bermuda]

Why? It wasn't his choice. Orders are orders.

I would in no way obey any kind of order to kill about hundreds of thousands of people with an atomic bomb. And I won't even bother try discussing with lots of Americans here claiming they had a justification to do that under the presumption that more people could do die. Sorry but this was inhumane and a horrible war crime that its responsibles should have been tried just like Nazi officers.

Most Japanese civilians (and whatever was left of the Imperial Military) were trained to stop the Allies from taking the Japanese Home Islands. Iwo Jima and Okinawa (which had casualties of 26,000 and >122,000 respectively) showed that the Japanese would defend their territory at all costs. After all, Iwo Jima had a land area of 21 square KM and Okinawa had one of 1,201 square KM, so that's 1238 dead per square kilometer on Iwo Jima and 101 dead per Square Kilometer on Okinawa. The Japanese Home islands would be just as, if not more, defended than both of those islands. In short, A-Bomb was the lesser evil in this scenario and casualty estimations were not unfounded.

[The Sotoan Union]

I wonder if our perception of nuclear weapons would be different if they were never actually used in warfare.

[Imperializt Russia]

I wonder if our perception of nuclear weapons would be different if they were never actually used in warfare.

There'd be questions about utility over unproven claims and arguments to capability.

With the Japan bombings, we know nuclear arms are incredibly powerful. It's likely we might have underestimated the lasting effects and even the prompt lethality of nuclear detonations - and thus been more rash to let MacArthur nuke the shit out of China. Or perhaps engage in a war of annihilation with Russia to prevent Soviet domination of Europe.
Almost all estimations and outlooks about nuclear conflict stem from the calculations and data from Hiroshima.

[Napkiraly]

Any evidence to point that out would be appreciated.

To point out less debatable war crime, let's look at fire bombing of Tokyo.
http://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/firebombing-of-tokyo

But I mean, they were just dirty Japs so I guess they deserved it, am I right?

Do we really need to sit here and cite Japanese war crimes to show how far they were willing to go?

Attacks on Hong Kong, Singapore, and Pearl Harbor

Mass Killings(an estimated 3-10 million people)

Human Experimentation and Biological Warfare

Here, that's only the beginning; have the full page.

The Japanese did more damage than they received. They are lucky the Americans got to them before the Soviets, as there would have probably been many revenge killings by the Soviets(maybe not, they mainly did it to Germany for an obvious reason. But it's possible~).

The Soviets didn't really have any major bones to pick with the Japanese, and vice versa. And that's assuming that the Soviets would have played a major role in the invading mainland Japan. The Soviet Navy wasn't very large and they didn't have much experience doing amphibious landings. And of course, Uncle Joe was focusing on establishing his grip in Europe (fun fact, his main focus for the first few years were primarily France and Italy, not Eastern Europe).

[Filthy Ginger Bastards]

Often ignored is the Pacific Theater of WWII.

Ignored, kind of. It's not really as glorified as the European Theater (especially considering the heinous crap the Nazis did), due to the fact that, "We stopped those evil guys!" sounds a bit better than, "We beat the living crap out of people that were socially and economically different than us!".

Japan did some pretty messed up stuff as well, what with Unit 731's experiments, egregious mistreatment of Chinese, Korean, Filipino, etc citizens, including a network of sexual slavery. Not to mention forced suicide of its own civilians.

Well before Pearl Harbour, Japan was committing war crimes against its neighbours.

See

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Japanese_war_crimes
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unit_731
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nanking_Massacre
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comfort_women
http://www.japanfocus.org/-Aniya-Masaaki/2629

[Gaiserin]

Do we really need to sit here and cite Japanese war crimes to show how far they were willing to go?

Attacks on Hong Kong, Singapore, and Pearl Harbor

Mass Killings(an estimated 3-10 million people)

Human Experimentation and Biological Warfare

Here, that's only the beginning; have the full page.

The Japanese did more damage than they received. They are lucky the Americans got to them before the Soviets, as there would have probably been many revenge killings by the Soviets(maybe not, they mainly did it to Germany for an obvious reason. But it's possible~).

Unfortunately, you seem to have missed my point.

[Blazedtown]

ATLANTA -- The last surviving member of the crew that dropped an atomic bomb on Hiroshima once said he thought the bombing was necessary because it shortened the war and eliminated the need for an Allied land invasion that could have cost more lives on both sides.

But Theodore "Dutch" VanKirk also said it made him wary of war - and that he would like to see all of the world's atomic bombs abolished.

VanKirk died Monday at the retirement home where he lived in Stone Mountain, Georgia, his son Tom VanKirk said. He was 93.

Theodore VanKirk flew as navigator on the Enola Gay, the B-29 Superfortress that dropped the first atomic bomb deployed in wartime over the Japanese city of Hiroshima on Aug. 6, 1945.

The bombing hastened the end of World War II. The blast and its aftereffects killed 140,000 in Hiroshima. Three days after Hiroshima, a second atomic bomb was dropped on Nagasaki. That blast and its aftermath claimed 80,000 lives. Six days after the Nagasaki bombing, Japan surrendered.

Whether the United States should have used the atomic bomb has been debated endlessly.

"I honestly believe the use of the atomic bomb saved lives in the long run," VanKirk told The Associated Press in a 2005 interview. "There were a lot of lives saved. Most of the lives saved were Japanese."

But VanKirk said the experience of World War II also showed him "that wars don't settle anything."

"And atomic weapons don't settle anything," he said. "I personally think there shouldn't be any atomic bombs in the world — I'd like to see them all abolished.

"But if anyone has one," he added, "I want to have one more than my enemy."

VanKirk was teamed with pilot Paul Tibbets and bombardier Tom Ferebee in Tibbets' fledgling 509th Composite Bomb Group for Special Mission No. 13.

The mission went perfectly, VanKirk told the AP. He guided the bomber through the night sky, just 15 seconds behind schedule, he said. As the 9,000-pound bomb nicknamed "Little Boy" fell toward the sleeping city, he and his crewmates hoped to escape with their lives.

They didn't know whether the bomb would actually work and, if it did, whether its shockwaves would rip their plane to shreds. They counted — one thousand one, one thousand two — reaching the 43 seconds they'd been told it would take for detonation, and heard nothing.

"I think everybody in the plane concluded it was a dud. It seemed a lot longer than 43 seconds," VanKirk recalled.

Then came a bright flash. Then a shockwave. Then another shockwave.

VanKirk stayed on with the military for a year after the war ended. Then he went to school, earned degrees in chemical engineering and signed on with DuPont, where he stayed until he retired in 1985. He later moved from California to the Atlanta area to be near his daughter.

Like many World War II veterans, VanKirk didn't talk much about his service until much later in his life when he spoke to school groups, his son said.

"I didn't even find out that he was on that mission until I was 10 years old and read some old news clippings in my grandmother's attic," Tom VanKirk told the AP in a phone interview Tuesday.

Instead, he and his three siblings treasured a wonderful father, who was a great mentor and remained active and "sharp as a tack" until the end of his life.

"I know he was recognized as a war hero, but we just knew him as a great father," Tom VanKirk said.

VanKirk's military career was chronicled in a 2012 book, "My True Course," by Suzanne Dietz. VanKirk was energetic, very bright and had a terrific sense of humor, Dietz recalled Tuesday.

Interviewing VanKirk for the book, she said, "was like sitting with your father at the kitchen table listening to him tell stories."

A funeral service was scheduled for VanKirk on Aug. 5 in his hometown of Northumberland, Pennsylvania. He will be buried in Northumberland next to his wife, who died in 1975. The burial will be private.

Sources:

last of the Enola Gay

Opinion:

So ends another of histories chapters closing once, and for all with only memories to look back on. I suppose the bombings were necessary given the alternative would have been disastrous on multiple levels. Not to mention Truman would have been impeached once the public found out that all those people didn't need to die in such a massive undertaking ( invasion of the Japanese home islands).

Either way, how would history have changed had the bombs not been dropped?

What say you oh NSG's unleavened, and leavened masses?

RIP a great man who helped usher in age of Pax Atomica.

[Union Of Canadorian Socialists Republic]

Often ignored is the Pacific Theater of WWII.

Ignored? Not at all.

[Union Of Canadorian Socialists Republic]

Talk about fire support.. You gotta love that wartime production the US had going on.

Dependent on the degree of resistance the Japanese people showed against an Allied (US, Russia, China) landing on the home islands, the casualties would have been grievous - into the tens of millions, if not more.

Indeed. Think Operation Barbarossa.

[The Orson Empire]

A lot more people would have died and Japan would have likely still be recovering. The use of atomic weapons was a necessary and humane action.

Indeed.

If the U.S. would have invaded Japan, estimates say the U.S. could have suffered up to 4 million casualties, while the Japanese could have suffered up to 10 million casualties. It would have been an extremely bloody fight.

[Saruhan]

RIP then, airman, you did your duty, and made them pay for Hong Kong and Bataan. Too bad they were the only ones that got justice done for.

Also lel to the people who used just following orders as some sort of defence to "war crimes". Guess who said that that wasn't an excuse and for which people it was referred to? Either way I don't believe that was a way crime but still it's kinda hypocritical

[Dracoria]

Must have been amazing for him to witness the technological advancement within his life. In his youth, he probably didn't even know what electricity was and fought his battles with nothing but a black-powder muzzleloader and bayonet - and by the time he died, people were fighting wars with supersonic jets and atomic bombs. It must have felt pretty strange for that man to recall his early youth.

Just over another decade and he would have lived to see us go to the moon. That's crazy to think about.

He would've also seen the most energetic portion of the Civil Rights Movement. That probably would've been the strangest part of all, not to mention bringing some sense of closure to the things he'd seen in that strange, long life.

Very true.

I was doing some more research into the Allied Fleet composition for Operation Downfall, and it would consist of 42 Aircraft Carriers, 24 Battleships, 400 Destroyers and Frigates, and quite a few more supply ships.

Talk about fire support.. You gotta love that wartime production the US had going on.

Even more mind-numbing would be estimating how many of them would have been lost to the final waves of kamikazes, suicide boats and manned torpedoes.

Very true as well. The European Theater could also be considered far more memorable considering that most people would be able to point it out on the map, which cannot be said about every Pacific Battle.

Mhm. Tiny islands that were turned into fortresses.

We'll meet at Midway.

[Dracoria]

Of course, I gladly concede that in the US, people do remember the Pacific campaigns but I think that's chiefly because the US was by and large, the largest allied belligerent and was directly involved in most of these battles. (And paid a very bloody price too)

On the other hand, a lot of Britons I've spoken to remember the UK's European activities but virtually nothing on the Malayan campaign of 1941-42.

I will admit though that the Australians, Canadians, New Zealanders, Indians, Britons, and other commonwealthers in the Pacific were some of the toughest soldiers you could come by in the Pacific. .

Not even touching on the ground warfare that has been brought up so far in the island campaigns, but...
There's a reason USS Canberra was the only USN ship to be named after a foreign warship.
There's also a reason the USS Enterprise (CV6) was the only foreign ship to carry a British Admiralty Pennant.
The Allied navies developed some serious respect for one another in those campaigns, and the Aussies in particular punched above their weight.

The Japanese did more damage than they received. They are lucky the Americans got to them before the Soviets, as there would have probably been many revenge killings by the Soviets(maybe not, they mainly did it to Germany for an obvious reason. But it's possible~).

The Soviets didn't really have any major bones to pick with the Japanese, and vice versa. And that's assuming that the Soviets would have played a major role in the invading mainland Japan. The Soviet Navy wasn't very large and they didn't have much experience doing amphibious landings. And of course, Uncle Joe was focusing on establishing his grip in Europe (fun fact, his main focus for the first few years were primarily France and Italy, not Eastern Europe).[/quote]

The Soviet Navy was kind of a sad joke in WWII. Their only battleships were three outdated WWI-era vessels, they had seven cruisers (granted, 4 were relatively modern, Italian-designed ships), and much of the action was performed by destroyers and submarines. The submarines in particular suffered monstrous losses in the Baltic while doing moderate damage to the Axis shipping in the area. There was nothing in the way of landing craft, and no training and practice in their use compared to the Western Allies' experience in the Pacific island, Mediterranean and eventually Normandy invasions. The Japanese, meanwhile, had plenty of experience resisting well-prepared amphibious invasions and would have been a terrible army to practice against in 1945. So...Yeah, they wouldn't have played a major role in the invasion of mainland Japan, aside from a rather expensive (in human lives) distraction.

[Napkiraly]

I will admit though that the Australians, Canadians, New Zealanders, Indians, Britons, and other commonwealthers in the Pacific were some of the toughest soldiers you could come by in the Pacific. .

Not even touching on the ground warfare that has been brought up so far in the island campaigns, but...
There's a reason USS Canberra was the only USN ship to be named after a foreign warship.
There's also a reason the USS Enterprise (CV6) was the only foreign ship to carry a British Admiralty Pennant.
The Allied navies developed some serious respect for one another in those campaigns, and the Aussies in particular punched above their weight.

The Japanese did more damage than they received. They are lucky the Americans got to them before the Soviets, as there would have probably been many revenge killings by the Soviets(maybe not, they mainly did it to Germany for an obvious reason. But it's possible~).

The Soviets didn't really have any major bones to pick with the Japanese, and vice versa. And that's assuming that the Soviets would have played a major role in the invading mainland Japan. The Soviet Navy wasn't very large and they didn't have much experience doing amphibious landings. And of course, Uncle Joe was focusing on establishing his grip in Europe (fun fact, his main focus for the first few years were primarily France and Italy, not Eastern Europe).

The Soviet Navy was kind of a sad joke in WWII. Their only battleships were three outdated WWI-era vessels, they had seven cruisers (granted, 4 were relatively modern, Italian-designed ships), and much of the action was performed by destroyers and submarines. The submarines in particular suffered monstrous losses in the Baltic while doing moderate damage to the Axis shipping in the area. There was nothing in the way of landing craft, and no training and practice in their use compared to the Western Allies' experience in the Pacific island, Mediterranean and eventually Normandy invasions. The Japanese, meanwhile, had plenty of experience resisting well-prepared amphibious invasions and would have been a terrible army to practice against in 1945. So...Yeah, they wouldn't have played a major role in the invasion of mainland Japan, aside from a rather expensive (in human lives) distraction.[/quote]
Indeed, in fact apparently the landings at Shumshu dissuaded sections of the Soviet military from invading Hokkaido. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Shumshu