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Came to life: on December 31, 2004 23:59 PM Not a journalist, but highly opinionated

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Sixty Years Ago Today
Today is the anniversary of the bombing of Hiroshima. President Truman ordered the atomic bomb be dropped on Japan to put an end to the Second World War and further deaths of American troops. The developement of the bomb was already in place before Truman became president on the death of Franklin D. Roosevelt.
'Enola Gay', the plane used to deliver the bomb, flew over Hiroshima and dropped its payload, called 'Little Boy' on a population of about 350,000. An estimated 140,000 people were killed instantly or died within a short period of time.

A second bomb, 'Fat Man' was needed to convince the Japanese military to surrender and it was dropped by 'Bock's Car' three days later on Nagasaki killing another 80,000 people.
So shocking were the film and photos taken of the bombings, that America suppressed footage for decades.
Should the bomb have been used at all? Many people have argued against it:

From: http://www.physicsforums.com/archive/t-4615_On_this_day_in_1945....html

According to Admiral William D. Leahy, Chair of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and President Truman's Chief of Staff: "The Japanese were already defeated and ready to surrender because of the effective sea blockade and the successful bombing with conventional weapons... In being the first to use it [the atomic bomb], we had adopted an ethical standard common to the barbarians of the Dark Ages."

"Japan was at that very moment seeking some way to surrender with a minimum loss of 'face'... It wasn't necessary to hit them with that awful thing." (General Dwight David Eisenhower Commander in Chief of Allied Forces in Europe).

"It would be a mistake to suppose that the fate of Japan was settled by the atomic bomb. Her defeat was certain before the first bomb fell." (UK Prime Minister Winston Churchill.)

"Certainly prior to 31 December 1945... Japan would have surrendered even if the atomic bombs had not been dropped, even if Russia had not entered the war and even if no invasion had been planned or contemplated." (US Strategic Bombing Survey, 1946.)

"General Curtis LeMay: 'The war would have been over in two weeks without the Russians entering and without the atomic bomb.'

Field Marshal Montgomery ( Commander of all UK Forces in Europe) wrote in his History of Warfare: It was unnecessary to drop the two atom bombs on Japan in August 1945, and I cannot think it was right to do so .... the dropping of the bombs was a major political blunder and is a prime example of the declining standards of the conduct of modern war.

Truman's Chief of Staff, Admiral Leahy, wrote: It is my opinion that the use of this barbarous weapon at Hiroshima and Nagasaki was of no material assistance in our war against Japan. The Japanese were already defeated and ready to surrender because of the effective blockade and the successful bombing with conventional weapons ... In being the first to use it, we adopted an ethical standard common to the Dark Ages. I was not taught to make war in this fashion, and wars cannot be won by destroying women and children.

"The dropping of the first atomic bomb was also an act of pure terrorism. It fulfilled no military purpose of any kind. Belatedly it has been disclosed that seven months before it was dropped, in January 1945, President Roosevelt received via General MacArthur's headquarters an offer by the Japanese Government to surrender on terms virtually identical to those accepted by the United States after the dropping of the bomb: in July 1945, as we now know, Roosevelt's successor, President Truman, discussed with Stalin at Bebelsberg the Japanese offer to surrender....The Japanese people were to be enlisted as human guinea-pigs for a scientific experiment." - F.J.P Veale, Advance To Barbarism: The Development Of Total Warfare From Serajevo To Hiroshima (California: Institute for Historical Review, 1979), pp.352-53.

It is easy to armchair quarterback on the above subject, but President Truman had to make an informed decision back in 1945, and he went along with the plan adopted prior to his inauguration. To those of us with any morals at all, another use of an atomic bomb is the last thing that we would ever want to see happen. To those with no morals, the following fictional essay:

The Sacrifice and the Reckoning THE TECATE TRUCK was just like all the other Tecate Beer trucks that went back and forth daily at the border crossing, except that it was not owned by Tecate. The driver of that truck spoke fluent Spanish and the truck was always loaded with Tecate. In time the US border guards got used to it. The difference was that this truck had, at its center, a narrow, hollow space shielded with thin sheets of lead so that no ambient radiation would escape.
It had cost The Base over $150,000 to convert the truck at a garage in Ensenada a year before. That was little enough when it came to securing the device which had cost the same group more than $10 million in Russia in 1997. In any event, the truck did its job and passed without incident over the border and into the United States at Rancho Cucamunga on August 6th. Dates were important to The Base, and this date was especially significant. After all, what could be more significant than the day on which Hiroshima was destroyed?
After clearing the border the Tecate Truck followed Highway 94 north to Highway 8 at La Mesa, California, and then drove west to Highway 5. It pulled off the road at a rest stop where it picked up a technician in a Tecate uniform who was carrying a case with the necessary electronics and a couple of weapons. After that, the two men followed 5 to the coast and swung down into San Diego. It got off the freeway in downtown and quickly made its way to the intersection of North Harbor Drive and West Broadway. It's total travel time from the border to downtown San Diego was just over an hour. It was running close to schedule. It was about 11:30 in the morning.
Read the complete story.
'Be sure to read my next post which will be from my bomb shelter. I should live so long.'

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