The 6th of August 1945.

[Sully60]

What would the world be like today if the events of this day never happened?
That's one of those questions that cannot really be answered but one that can be answered is how have the events of this day and the 9th shaped the world we live in today?

Has the world been a safer place with the following proliferation of Nuclear weapons? Was the prospect of mutually assured destruction really what kept the world safe in the intervening years?

I don't know about you but the prospect that there are plenty of missles still around that carry five or more warheads each far more powerful than the weapons used 63 years ago scares the bejesus out of me.

Has the human race advanced so far that we a immune to repeating events of the past?

On one last note a solemn thought goes out to the people of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, may the memory of your suffering serve to keep this world a safer place for future generations.

[Number One]

RIP Hiroshima peeps. The prospect scares me too....nout we can do though eh? Don't worry be happy...


WOW that was shallow wasn't it?! Sorry BUMP I guess...

[Pussy]

Probably sounds callous, but those two bombs ultimately saved lots of lives

[pzkpfw]

What would the world be like today if the events of this day never happened?

There'd probably be fewer Americans alive today.

The ending of the war would likely have required an invasion of the Japanese home lands (unless you think the initial Japanese terms of "surrender" should have been accepted) - and that would have resulted in lots of American deaths, and possibly as many or more Japanese deaths, anyway.

Even a passive blockade would have resulted in Japanese deaths.



That's one of those questions that cannot really be answered

No. I just did.



but one that can be answered is how have the events of this day and the 9th shaped the world we live in today?

Has the world been a safer place with the following proliferation of Nuclear weapons? Was the prospect of mutually assured destruction really what kept the world safe in the intervening years?

You can't keep the genie in the bottle. If the U.S. hadn't been building "the bomb" would that have stopped anyone else?

Stalin? (He killed plenty - of his own people - without "the bomb".)

I think MAD has helped, as otherwise one side with an advantage might have been tempted.

The interlocking of economies has also been one of the things that stopped certain kinds (and locations) of war. As with MAD, "everyone" knows they lose. Germany (just for e.g.) has more to gain by trade with the rest of Europe, than it has by trying to conquer it all.



I don't know about you but the prospect that there are plenty of missles still around that carry five or more warheads each far more powerful than the weapons used 63 years ago scares the bejesus out of me.

Used to scare me too.

Now I'm more worried about terrorists or rogue states that sneak ONE bomb in somewhere*.

It'll happen one day.

(*Yes, I know that sounds like U.S. propoganda, but I do think it's true.)



Has the human race advanced so far that we a immune to repeating events of the past?

Shit no. Wars still happen.



On one last note a solemn thought goes out to the people of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, may the memory of your suffering serve to keep this world a safer place for future generations.

...and those in Tokyo and Dresden and Canterbury and London and Rotterdam and Darwin and Nanking and...

[Sully60]

Probably sounds callous, but those two bombs ultimately saved lots of lives

Absolutley no doubting that John and I would add that most of those lives would have been Japanese. I'd also hazard to guess that a good number of people on this site may never had been born if this didn't happen.

My question was more how the world has been shaped by the advent of Nuclear weapons, 63 years ago today the world changed forever.

[MIXONE]

Is the world a better place now?Sometimes I wonder but I'm sure glad I didn't have to go to war.

[Oakie]

Probably sounds callous, but those two bombs ultimately saved lots of lives

I was having deep thoughts about it just a few days ago. Those two bombs saved lots of American lives back then. Hard to tell how big the toll would have been on the Japanese side had the allies had to invade Japan. Probably would have been many more than perished in the blasts.
I was wondering though how many lives may have been saved later on when having seen the actual horror of these weapons in 1945 may have prevented someone lobbing a few around in somewhere like Korea, Cuba or Vietnam. At least back in 1945 there were only a very few weapons to use. In any of those subsequent conflicts if someone had pressed the button there could well have been a full scale exchange.

As unpleasant as it is to say, perhaps the horror of Hiroshima and Nagasaki may have ultimately saved mankind.

[Sully60]

Used to scare me too.

Now I'm more worried about terrorists or rogue states that sneak ONE bobm in somewhere*.

It'll happen one day.

(*Yes, I know that sounds like U.S. propoganda, but I do think it's true.)


I draw a comparison to gun laws, if there are no guns available people don't get shot. Humans will always devise ever more clever ways to kill each other but will always go for the easiest option first, there's extra kudos points for those who scare the shit out of half the worlds population doing so.



Shit no. Wars still happen.

That's true and I believe the pressure on the worlds resources will only make the likelihood of war greater.




...and those in Tokyo and Dresden and Canterbury and London and Rotterdam and Darwin and Nanking and...

Don't forget Coventry.

Innocent civilians, victims of circumstances well beyond their control, the tyrannies of evil men. R.I.P.

[Sully60]

As unpleasant as it is to say, perhaps the horror of Hiroshima and Nagasaki may have ultimately saved mankind.

That's a good point, if Truman didn't push the button (figuratively) then who would and against who?

Perish the thought.

[Mom]

I had the priveledge of nursing an eldery Hiroshima survivor. She had TB and was a very sick woman at the time, and had been for most of her life as a result of the radiation poisoning the bomb created in her home town. She was 6? if I remember right, but certainly very young and retold her experience on the day. She lost most of her family that day.

The amazing thing about it for me, nursing her in the mid '70s, was her complete acceptance of what happened and the reasons why. She bore no malice to anyone. She said it had to happen to stop the madness!

Terrible thing if you count the human cost, but thank God it did happen. Horrible reconcilliation to make :yes:

[Mully]

Slightly off topic, but wasn't it the 6th August for Hiroshima and the 9th for Nagasaki??

[98tls]

Nice post Mom,what scares me is we remember the bomb,we remember D-day etc but shitloads perish through lack of food etc every day and we go about our business without giving it a thought,i make a token gesture by going in with a few others at work to sponser a child somewhere.Not really a "save the world" kind of person but do you get what i am saying?off topic i guess sorry.

[Pussy]

I admire the Japanese for the way they picked themselves up (after the war), dusted themselves off, and got stuck in to it.
When I was a little kid, if anything had "made in Japan" on it, most people were reluctant to touch it, whereas nowadays, I just about won't buy stuff unless it HAS got "made in Japan" on it.
There is no doubt the two bombs changed the world forever... who knows how different it might have been

[Mom]

off topic i guess sorry. Fairly hard to be off topic with such a big subject mate.

My take on life...



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[Sully60]

Slightly off topic, but wasn't it the 6th August for Hiroshima and the 9th for Nagasaki??

You're absolutley right I will get a mod to change the title, thanks.

Shit being eight hours out of step with the rest of the world can get real confusing, the 8th of August is the day I joined KB :doh: so not that historic.

[MD]

Another thought to ponder is, did they need to drop the first 2 bombs on populated cities to make their point- our guns bigger than your's, so give up.

They could have equally scared the fight out of the Japanese by dropping the bombs a few miles out of the cities, but close enough to get the message across. A few million people witness a bomb capable of destroying their entire city, rather than a few million dead bodies to make the statement.

I guess the risk with that approach would have been that the Japanese might have assumed that the Yanks wouldn't actually have the guts to drop one on a populated city. Or, more likely the reason, you alert the Japanese to keep Yank boats and planes beyond striking distance.

Can't say I've heard much about the life of the crew of the Enola Gay after that day? Were they treated as heroes? I do remember seeing something once about the captain being proud of his involvement in bringing the war to an end.

[Pussy]

The captain of Enola Gay only recently died. Col.Paul Tibbets. He had no public regret for carrying out his orders

[Oakie]

I admire the Japanese for the way they picked themselves up (after the war), dusted themselves off, and got stuck in to it.


I heard a quote regarding that a few years back. It was to do with the re-industrialisation of Japan post 1945 and it's effect on American industry (think the growth of Honda and Toyota cars vs the struggles of Chrysler and Ford for example). It went something along the lines of "America won the war but Japan won the peace".

[Pussy]

I heard a quote regarding that a few years back. It was to do with the re-industrialisation of Japan post 1945 and it's effect on American industry (think the growth of Honda and Toyota cars vs the struggles of Chrysler and Ford for example). It went something along the lines of "America won the war but Japan won the peace".

I often use that quote myself. Good on them, too!

[98tls]

Another thought to ponder is, did they need to drop the first 2 bombs on populated cities to make their point- our guns bigger than your's, so give up.

They could have equally scared the fight out of the Japanese by dropping the bombs a few miles out of the cities, but close enough to get the message across. A few million people witness a bomb capable of destroying their entire city, rather than a few million dead bodies to make the statement.

I guess the risk with that approach would have been that the Japanese might have assumed that the Yanks wouldn't actually have the guts to drop one on a populated city. Or, more likely the reason, you alert the Japanese to keep Yank boats and planes beyond striking distance.

Can't say I've heard much about the life of the crew of the Enola Gay after that day? Were they treated as heroes? I do remember seeing something once about the captain being proud of his involvement in bringing the war to an end. Methinks anything less than what happened would have achieved nothing,the mindset instilled in the Japanese soldier was no surrender and i cant imagine anything less from the civillan population unless it was made obvious that anything but was futile.Hitler instilled the same mindset in various Waffen SS units with some sucess but i think the Japanese to some degree were born with it.

[xwhatsit]

Methinks anything less than what happened would have achieved nothing,the mindset instilled in the Japanese soldier was no surrender and i cant imagine anything less from the civillan population unless it was made obvious that anything but was futile.Hitler instilled the same mindset in various Waffen SS units with some sucess but i think the Japanese to some degree were born with it.
I'm not sure if I agree completely with that. Within the Japanese civilian population, they still believed right up until the end that they were winning and beating them and were going to win the war. People in other cities were shocked to hear that Japan had surrendered, and shocked to hear of what had happened with the bombs. Essentially they were being fed shitloads of propaganda.

However, drop a bomb outside the city, how can you keep that quiet? You don't need to be inhumane and wipe out a whole city of people, but just show them what the bomb could do. Enough civilians learn about that, they realise the true nature of the war, the leadership also learns what sort of power was being wielded against them... Well it would be worth a try first, wouldn't it? But no, let's shoot first and ask questions later, hooray USA! :no:

It's amazing how little we're taught about it at school when we're growing up etc. We hear all about the evil things Hitler did, but what happened to Hiroshima and Nagasaki is quickly brushed over and written off. What they did was almost as evil, in my book.

[Pussy]

Things would be QUITE different if we'd come second in the '39-'45 conflict

[Timber020]

The japanese tortured, starved, experimented on, massacred, mutilated, used chemical and biological weopons on civilians that were in their way.

What they did to our men, women and children who were captured by them dwarfed the karma of fat man and little boy.

If they had won, if they had the bomb, the rest of the world would have either been enslaved or executed without discussion of whether it was right or not. The firebombing killed more, and yet they didnt surrender then.

Even when the second bomb was dropped the imperial army didnt want to surrender. The last japanese soldier surrendered in 1975 ffs. A near miss would have meant NOTHING but more of our guys killed with the prolonging of the war.

For all the suffering they caused, and still cause (people in china still die from the plagues they dropped there) and deny in there own history books, (as a people and nation they take next to no responsibility for what they did) I wonder if 2 wasnt getting off lightly.

[98tls]

I'm not sure if I agree completely with that. Within the Japanese civilian population, they still believed right up until the end that they were winning and beating them and were going to win the war. People in other cities were shocked to hear that Japan had surrendered, and shocked to hear of what had happened with the bombs. Essentially they were being fed shitloads of propaganda.

However, drop a bomb outside the city, how can you keep that quiet? You don't need to be inhumane and wipe out a whole city of people, but just show them what the bomb could do. Enough civilians learn about that, they realise the true nature of the war, the leadership also learns what sort of power was being wielded against them... Well it would be worth a try first, wouldn't it? But no, let's shoot first and ask questions later, hooray USA! :no:

It's amazing how little we're taught about it at school when we're growing up etc. We hear all about the evil things Hitler did, but what happened to Hiroshima and Nagasaki is quickly brushed over and written off. What they did was almost as evil, in my book. Also very easy to have a crack at the US.......never understood that at all.Personally i dont give a fuck about Hiroshima etc its spoken of because its recent history fair enough but the in the big picture its nothing more than a memorable moment of many.The world sat up and cried foul when they confronted the death camps but said nothing as millions died in German cities,not long before and during said nothing when Stalin disposed of millions for no other reason but political insecurity.Funny that on Internet forums recent tragic events are often taken to pieces and put right but seldomly are just as tragic events happening beneath our very eyes given any more attention than "2 sugars please" followed by the smug smile only someone camouflaged behind a billion interweb wires and a keyboard could smile..

[fatzx10r]

the japs got of light in ww2 i believe, they started the damn thing in the pacific. all the cruel shit they did to first the chinese, then all the rest of the population of the countries they invaded, not to mention our boys serving over there. so many of them that got off facing any war crimes is bullshit. would you all be so sympathetic if the fuckers had invaded NZ? they had already lost the war well before the a bombs were dropped, but they were bloody fanatic that they had no plans of surrender, instead they were getting ready for one last mass suicide battle on there there home land. dropping the bomb ended the war and saved more lives than it took

[98tls]

the japs got of light in ww2 i believe, they started the damn thing in the pacific. all the cruel shit they did to first the chinese, then all the rest of the population of the countries they invaded, not to mention our boys serving over there. so many of them that got off facing any war crimes is bullshit. would you all be so sympathetic if the fuckers had invaded NZ? they had already lost the war well before the a bombs were dropped, but they were bloody fanatic that they had no plans of surrender, instead they were getting ready for one last mass suicide battle on there there home land. dropping the bomb ended the war and saved more lives than it took ;)So your saying the Maori actually have a case?

[fatzx10r]

;)So your saying the Maori actually have a case?

no, i was just adding my 2cents on the whole dropping of the abomb

[Clockwork]

I heard a quote regarding that a few years back. It was to do with the re-industrialisation of Japan post 1945 and it's effect on American industry (think the growth of Honda and Toyota cars vs the struggles of Chrysler and Ford for example). It went something along the lines of "America won the war but Japan won the peace".

I understood that both Japan and Germany benifited enormously from post war reparations paid to them by the US. Conversly the UK was almost bankrupted repaying loans that the US had extended them before joining tha war in '41.

[nodrog]

What would the world be like today if the events of this day never happened?.

id be sick of eating fuckin rice for one.

[alley cat]

The captain of Enola Gay only recently died. Col.Paul Tibbets. He had no public regret for carrying out his orders

Who needs regrets, just doin his job. bullseye.

[Swoop]

The simple fact eludes a few, that the B-29 raids were fare more devastating.
The death toll from firebombing the population, who lived in timber houses, could (and occasionally did) exceed the atomic bomb death toll.

[alanzs]

I admire the Japanese for the way they picked themselves up (after the war), dusted themselves off, and got stuck in to it.
When I was a little kid, if anything had "made in Japan" on it, most people were reluctant to touch it, whereas nowadays, I just about won't buy stuff unless it HAS got "made in Japan" on it.
There is no doubt the two bombs changed the world forever... who knows how different it might have been

The US rebuilt the country as well as most of Europe. The thought was that getting people "things" through prosperity and capitalism would keep them happy and not fight against the US. The thought and plan was pretty successful.

There are also many historians who say that the Japanese were almost defeated anyways and that Truman dropping the bombs were as much a warning to Stalin, who killed 30+ million of his own people, that the US was THE next superpower, not the Soviet Union. That conflict ended just a few years ago.

I love the history channel... ;)