Would you have dropped it? Imagine being in Truman's position, 1 million casualties predicted, 4 years of long and bloody war, a war for global supremacy shaping up as soon the world war ended. Plus he inherited the job when Roosevelt unexpectedly died during the goddamn war.

I'd have done it! Gotta end the shit.

With hindsight though, I wouldnt have. But, then again, the Ruski's and Koreans and shit wouldve gotten their hands on the bombs anyway, eventually.

I would've done a George W and bombed a country that has no relation to the war at hand.

CONTROVERSIAL.

I wouldn't be able to go through with it.

I DON'T HAVE THE BALLS TO DO IT!

Which A-Bomb? Dropped by who on who?!

You serious? :eyebrow:

The one that was dropped on Hiroshima by the yanks, that pretty much ended World War 2.

I think if I did decide to drop the bomb I would have definitly have dropped it on a military target instead of a civillian target. Bombing civillians for political purposes is usually called "terrorism" these days and is frownd upon by most countries no matter how noble the cause.

Well he could have been talking about something recently, one that wasn't actually dropped :P.

Yes, i would have.

Yeah I probably would have, although I agree with Beast, in that it should have been on a military target instead with minimum risk of civillian casualties.

Yeah, I would have droped it, but it would not have been something esay to do.

I don't think I would have been able to drop it to be honest. What's interesting is that I was watching some program on TV on it just before and they were talking to someone who was the navigator of the plane that dropped the bomb. He sounded so bloody heartless. He had no regrets over doing it at all. It was as if doing it had left no mark on him. Had no effect. How could you live with yourself after basically being a part of killing what is estimated to be over 200,000 people. That's taking into account the radiation sickness.

I probably would have dropped it because I wouldn't have had history to learn from.

Eye for an eye. I think the Japanese would've kept on going if the yanks hadn't of done what they did. So in short, yes I would've done it but maybe not two.

(By the way, there were two A-bombs. One was dropped on Hiroshima and the other Nagasaki.)

If he was ordered to do it then what choice does he have?

Perhaps he likes to think how he ended the war?

I would have dropped it.

Thanks for the "My First History Lesson" Holmes.

I would've done it personally. Easiest way to win the war that the Americans could've easily lost. It would've been hard to do. Funny isn't it how this act of inhumanity gets covered up, but Japanese war camps get the spotlight treatment? Funny how winners of war write the history books.

No problem [m]averick, it's just with comments like "I would have dropped it", "Would you have dropped the A-Bomb?" and "I probably would have dropped it", I guess I got a bit worried that nobody knew their history proplerly.

Owned!

Man I've wanted to use that one for ages! :P


But yeah, I donno, I probably would have somehow shifted the responsability to someone else. >_>

Perhaps but that doesn't exactly sound like a reason to be so cold. I'll put it simply. You don't kill thousands of people without it having even a small effect on you. Meh...

Well Hitler killed millions. If you're convinced your doing the right think people could probably do anything.

David Irving disagrees.

Japan was the 'X', Russia the target. That to me is the hardest thing to swallow.

Explain! That sounds fascinating...

I'm assuming it's an obscure reference to the fact that America wanted to flex a little bit of muscle in the Cold War which was slightly getting hotter.

The research I have done into the period suggests that Japan was on the verge of surrender, with only a few terms left to hammer out between them and the Yanks. All of a sudden however we have a situation where Russia, after stopping seemingly unstoppable Germany, look likely to emerge from the war in an extremely powerful situation, perhaps even numero uno. America cottons on to this fact and in one final act of posturing and positioning, they flex their might by dropping a few nuclear bombs (targeted to display maximum damage and potential...hence civilian targets), thereby forcing Russia into an arms race that it can't possibly hope to win.

So yeah, Japan copped it, but it was with Russia in mind.

I doubt that Russia would have emerged from World War II as the number one force. Their slow mobilisation and late industrialisation, coupled with unstable governments would hinder this.

Go on...

I always thought Stalin's 5 year plans ensured Russia was industrialised pretty comprehensively, and his government enjoyed absolute power?

Nah, I'm not too confident on the Cold War, the only bits I know I have pieced together from WW2 in Modern History and off some restaurant placemats.

Either way, in World War I and II, Russia was very slow to mobilise and also quite backward in industrialisation. Dunno how much Stalin changed shit, as that seems to be out of my jurisdiction.

From what I read a while back, the bomb sites(I think there was a potential 5) were actually aimed at legit targets...some military shipping yards and factories(1 being a Mitsubishi one that made military vehicles) from memory.

I also remember that Kyoto was a target as well, but due to it's historical value to the Japanese, the US didn't bomb it out of respect.(apparently)

With Russian, the fear was that if they joined the war against Japan. They would wish to hold a part of the country like they did with Germany, & not take a few islands which they did.

As to the bombings. Some of the other plans were to drop a bomb on an island, with the knowledge of the Japanese (so they could do any tests to show they were going to lose). Another was to drop a bomb on a fleet. Both ideas were not used because it was seen that the Japanese would not have stopped fighting the war because of that.

As to the other cities. Heres the list (took me a while to find it).

http://archive.tri-cityherald.com/BOMB/bomb16.html