Has any single plane ever saved so many lives?

[Martlet]

Originally posted by Fishu
So many excuses for dropping couple of abombs.

Geez.. do some of you people even look at yourself what you're posting here.
Elsewhere some of you are going nuts over other similar kind of things that other nations does and then praising how 2 abombs saved lives and makes right for dropping those...

Hypocrisy at it's best.

What are we going "nuts over" that's similar to this?

[davidpt40]

I could care less how many Japs it killed. They should have thought of that before they started crap. It would have been nice if we had a few more to drop with it.

You sir, are insane.  

What's your point? That his thread title should read "Has any single plane ever saved so many AMERICAN lives?
 

Are you offended because I posted some statistics?  Continue being ignorant if you like.  You act like someone is going to go back in time and stop the atomic bomb, don't worry, they aren't.

The casualties listed above are both combat and accident.

[Martlet]

Originally posted by davidpt40
You sir, are insane.  

 

Are you offended because I posted some statistics?  Continue being ignorant if you like.  You act like someone is going to go back in time and stop the atomic bomb, don't worry, they aren't.

The casualties listed above are both combat and accident.

Who's offended?  My point was who cares?  You can speculate statistics all you'd like.  That's all it is, speculation.  I further added that even assuming your statistics were correct, again, who cares.  I'd much rather the Japs die than Americans.

So, while I may be insane, at least I can read.

[B17Skull12]

Dropping those two bombs was not a shining moment in world history. But it did end the war.

wrong. what ended the war was that the japs didn't even want to fight anymore. it was just rebels that were pushing the government to keep fighting. was watching show about it on history channel in may. what happened was the rebel leader surroundered the emporer and keep him locked up. he ask for help from another division of them army and his plan backfired and he got arrested and the japs surrenders.(few things i left out like the recording of the radio broadcast the emporer was going to make)


skull12

[AKS\/\/ulfe]

I would recommend you use not only the History channel to prove someone wrong, but some far more reliable and well researched books.
-SW

[threedays]

Originally posted by Mini D

Dropping those two bombs was not a shining moment in world history.  But it did end the war.  Very quickly.  I can't think of a single incident in any war that managed to end hostilities so fast.

Second drop was absolutly point less and first probably as well
jap empire was in deep troubles anyway.... check more books and more military experts all around world

demonstrate sutch power on civil target was stupid
rebuild Nagasaki a Hirosima was stupid as well, coz radioactivity were there many years after

[AKS\/\/ulfe]

Originally posted by threedays
Second drop was absolutly point less

Then why did Japan not surrender after the first one? First one should of been all they needed to surrender. Three days later, they got the second one dropped on them for not surrendering and still fighting.

Originally posted by threedays
and first probably as well

Only in your little world... if either one was pointless, Japan would of already surrendered.

Originally posted by threedays
jap empire was in deep troubles anyway.... check more books and more military experts all around world

They were in deep trouble throughout 1944 and 1945, yet they kept on fighting and taking as many American, British, Australian, and Canadian servicemen with them as possible. Japans resolve to fight to the death was proven 10 fold everytime the allies got closer to the homeland.

Originally posted by threedays
demonstrate sutch power on civil target was stupid

So it should of instead been dropped into the ocean right off Japan's shores. Aside from the radiated sea food and destroyed shoreline, Japan would of kept on fighting - they had every intention to do so. Or used it on a military target? Yeah, that would of been the ticket. Too bad the military targets were scattered throughout civilian areas.
-SW

[Fishu]

AKSwulfe,

Second one came only 3 days after the first one and it still took more than 3 days after the second one.
Perhaps 2 more abombs would been needed?

It's not like you surrender a nation in a day or two like that, definately not back then.

Besides that, US was going for unconditional surrender, but the japanese did not want to surrender unconditionally.
Would you?

If US would have agreed to conditional surrender, it could have saved more people.
More to think about.

[Martlet]

Originally posted by Fishu
AKSwulfe,

Second one came only 3 days after the first one and it still took more than 3 days after the second one.
Perhaps 2 more abombs would been needed?

It's not like you surrender a nation in a day or two like that, definately not back then.

Besides that, US was going for unconditional surrender, but the japanese did not want to surrender unconditionally.
Would you?

If US would have agreed to conditional surrender, it could have saved more people.
More to think about.

Again, you make a claim and then fail to answer questions about it.  This is getting to be a habit with you.

Japan attacked the U.S.  Why should we accept a conditional surrender?  If Japan had stayed home, they wouldn't have been in that position.

More to think about.

[AKS\/\/ulfe]

Perhaps your math is poor, but lets break this down:

First bomb: August 6th. 3 Days later, August 9th, second bomb. 3 Days later, surrender. If anything, only 1 more bomb would of been used, but it never came down to that due to the surrender. You don't think that in those 3 days there wasn't any leaks of surrender talks? Amazing - because for the entire war the allies were pulling intel from Japanese communiques... guess the allies in their haste to drop a-bombs forget to decode Japanese communiques at the end.

It's not like you surrender a nation in a day or two like that, definately not back then.

You certainly begin talks, unless of course you have no intention of surrendering. Hint, hint.

Besides that, US was going for unconditional surrender, but the japanese did not want to surrender unconditionally.
Would you?

First part can be explained: They started the war with the intents of forcing us to unconditionally surrender, it was war... you don't deliver demands to surrender with a pretty bouquet.

Second part, would I start a war with a much larger nation? Well, lets step it down a size - would I start a fist fight with Mike Tyson?

If US would have agreed to conditional surrender, it could have saved more people.
More to think about.

If Japan hadn't started the war, there wouldn't of been a war. Don't start nothing, there won't be nothing. Pretty clear cut, Japan started the whole mess - they were going to go away with two black eyes and broken ribs, not a shake of the hand and a pat on the ass.
-SW

[AKS\/\/ulfe]

Oh, and lets not forget the death labor camps or the Bataan death march.

The US government and people of the time heard some extremely horrifying stories of what was happening to their husbands and sons.

There was plenty of reason to end the war quickly with as few allies' lives lost as possible, and the A-Bomb option was it.

This wasn't about saving as many Japanese lives as possible, it was all about saving the allies' lives. Japanese were a side effect people like to throw in there as a "well it also saved them". It was about allies' lives and thats all there is to it.

After all, I seem to remember it was Hitler, Tojo and Mussolini that started WWII... not the other way around.
-SW

[type_char]

There is no way allied/US forces would have landed on mainland Japan without a very large and extensive air campaign to level just about everything important. It may have ben another year or more who knows as the ongoing campaign continued. Still its sad because hundreds of thousands of civilians were zapped in a few seconds twice. I would hate to be the one that would have to do that, I mean drop da bomb (on anybody).

Germany got its bombs throughout the war...

[Dago]

I am getting so sick of these damn Fxxking European Liberals.  Sit on a mighty high horse making judgements and condemnations without having done anything themselves.

Shoulda just let Hitler have Europe, make them all good little goose stepping sausage eating Nazis.

England is one of the only countries worth saving,  mainly because they at least put up a good fight themselves.

[Animal]

The Enola Gay? Sorry that rethoric does not work. Its like still trying to justify a a very nasty attack. Do not try to put heroism and life saving with an act that was the apocalypse for so many. Nobody knows for sure what would have happened if they had not dropped the bombs. An invasion would have obviously caused endless death and destruction, but even that was not really necessary; an indefinite naval and aerial blockade would have more probably had Japan on a surrender sooner or later with less lost lives. A nation like Japan would not have been able to mantain structure for more than two years without outside resources. Then it would have been a matter of waiting how long the Emperor could withstand without his lavish luxuries and pressure; the government would have simply collapsed. And anyways one bomb would have been more than enough. Even dropping one bomb in a non-populated area just to show its power would have had Hirohito on his knees. You think they surrenderd AFTER the second one, but you think comunication back then was the same as it was now. The Japanese lines were all either destroyed or jammed. It took almost a week for official comunications in the chain of command to settle. And since they had no good comunication, it obviously took more than three days for their government to organize a surrender. 3 days between bombings back then was like waiting only an hour in today's time. They dropped two on cities just because they were itching to use their new super toy, and they wanted to know how effective it was against a real target. Remember that the Japanese back then were thought as sub-human by many, so they had no qualms about testing it on them.

Originally posted by Crowwe
Saved? That word shouldn't go into the statement... it should of said;

"This plane ended an ugly war with an equally ugly weapon, to prevent an even uglier number of unnecessary military and civilian deaths."

I am much more at ease with this definition. I even agree with it sometimes. But the truth is no one can predict what would have happened. You can argue it forever. But what is done is done, and in the end, it may have been worth it because the damage was so horrific that it may have prevented a real nuclear war between you-know-who.

Back on subject, two aircraft that have truly saved many lives are the DC-3/C-47 and the UH1 Huey, both in different roles.

[Mini D]

Hey animal... didn't you find a nuke cruise missile washed up on the beach in PR?

The A-Bomb did not have to be dropped.  But it did bring the war to an end.  What an obvious conflict this must be for liberal wheenies such as yourself.

A blockade would have starved hundreds of thousands of people.  An invasion would have caused untold damage to the country.  Civilians on outlying islands had already committed mass suicides to avoid U.S. soldiers/occupation.  2 bombs hit 2 cities and the war was ended.

The ironic thing... the Hiroshima and Nagasaki stories are much greater than the Tokyo firebombing stories.  I'd even wager that if we'd just leveled the two towns using B-26s nobody would really even care and the war would have raged on.

But... nukes are bad and no good can come from their use.  Mmmmkay.

MiniD