HAPPY VJ DAY!!!

[Vudak]

The Cold war was just that.  Was our proliferation not a deterent to the great reaches of aggression by the Soviet Union?  When were we attacked?   I think we can claim victory.

I take it you're not Slavic... 

[Timofei]

Thats 3 generations, of Americans, and Japanese, that are alive, because of the 2 A bomb blasts...
RC

Many historians , like Tsuyoshi Hasegawa have pointed out that atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki were not decisive, but the Soviet invasion of Manchuria.  In operation "August Storm" the Soviets crushed 9 Japanese armies, together 10 times as strong as Japanese forces in Okinawa. In a week they conquered a land area bigger than all the western allies had taken together in previous three years...
 

[Nilsen]

Where I live, there are plenty of people who will yell in your face that the USA is evil and that we are the only country that ever nuked an enemy...  These people have no perspective.  Thank God we got the bomb before the Germans did, and thank God our leadership had the will to use it and save the lives of our fathers and grandfathers instead of invading the Japanese home islands.

Don't thank god. Thank those who invented it before the germans, and those that prevented the germans from having it. 

[Dago]

It's just an example of cultural difference, dago.  If you refrain from interpreting in the most stupid way possible you might just be struck with a thought.

Play your little word games, pretend to be some intellectual elite, refuse to accept that comparison of very different cultures is as irrelevant as can be, I have no doubt you are the master of talking much while saying nothing.

In reality I think it is you who is losing context.  I have lived is different cultures and understand a little more than you think.

[Anaxogoras]

Most of the stuff I read about in history makes me think people were off their rockers.   It's just important to know why it made sense to them.  Sometimes I learn that circumstances or custom made things far more complicated than I had assumed, and I have to rethink my opinion.  Sometimes I learn that they really were brutish, and I have no trouble condemning them from my "privileged" perspective.  In the case of the Japanese in WW2, there was a lot of brutality and criminality, but fighting to the death and suicide before capture fall into the complicated category for me.

[sandwich]

Many historians , like Tsuyoshi Hasegawa have pointed out that atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki were not decisive, but the Soviet invasion of Manchuria.  In operation "August Storm" the Soviets crushed 9 Japanese armies, together 10 times as strong as Japanese forces in Okinawa. In a week they conquered a land area bigger than all the western allies had taken together in previous three years...
 

The soviet union also didnt care about casualties and were facing a slowly degrading japanese army.

In theory they were 10 times as strong as forces on okinawa but they didnt have any of the weapons, armor or supplies that were originally built up on okinawa.

The japanese army in manchuria was also very wrong and totally underestimated the soviet forces and such did not fortify their posistions at all.

The soviets fought like crazed dogs, but they were fighting a dying enemy.   

[soda72]

Many historians , like Tsuyoshi Hasegawa have pointed out that atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki were not decisive, but the Soviet invasion of Manchuria.  In operation "August Storm" the Soviets crushed 9 Japanese armies, together 10 times as strong as Japanese forces in Okinawa. In a week they conquered a land area bigger than all the western allies had taken together in previous three years...

On economic grounds, Manchuria was worth defending since it had the bulk of usable industry and raw materials outside of Japan and was still under Japanese control in 1945. However, the Japanese forces (Kwantung Army) were far below authorized strength; most of their heavy military equipment and all of their best military units had been transferred to the Pacific front over the previous three years. By 1945, the Kwantung Army contained a large number of raw recruits. As a result, the Kwantung Army had essentially been reduced to a light infantry counter-insurgency force with limited mobility and experience. On paper, the Japanese forces were no match for the highly mobile mechanized Red Army, with its vastly superior tanks, artillery, experience and tactics.

Hurray for the soviets, they defeated a second rate team...

[golf clap]

 

[sandwich]

Hurray for the soviets, they defeated a second rate team...

[golf clap]

 

 

[Stalwart]

Don't thank god.

God is real in my life.

[Nilsen]

God is real in my life.

Im sure he is, but he didnt invent the nuke

[sandwich]

Your a day early.

actually vj day happened on the 14th of august according to north american timezones.

In japanese standard time it was on the 15th.

[Xasthur]

Don't thank god. Thank those who invented it before the germans, and those that prevented the germans from having it. 

You can thank Hitler himself for that. He never believed in a war that would last long enough to require a nuclear weapon.

The Germans had the ideas but, from what I remember, Hitler saw it as a waste of resources that were better focused on developing more convential weapons.

As I understand it, he held such weapons back in the way he held the Me 262 back as a 'bomber'.

One of my customers was 9 years old and on the eastern side of Germany when the Russians came through. He and a bunch of other kids used to roll debris off roofs onto passing Russian soldiers. He is lucky he wasn't killed on the spot.

He witnessed the lynching of a downed B-17 crew by farmers with pitch-forks and shovels, too.  

He is also the most racist person I have ever met and even he is glad that Hitler held back the major weapons so that Germany did not have to suffer the same fate as Japan.