General Discussion
In reply to the discussion: Every year, I see the same thing re Hiroshima and Nagasaki [View all]hunter
(38,313 posts)That's all there is too it.
Our capacity to produce these things was huge, enough to destroy both Germany and Japan, while scaring the hell out of the Soviets.
But the Nazi war machine collapsed before we could use the bomb there.
The plan to invade the Japanese homeland was a deception from the moment the guys at Los Alamos calculated their plutonium bomb would work. The actual plan was to drop nuclear bombs on Japan until their war machine was extinguished. There were many more bombs in the pipeline, literally tons of plutonium in production.
After Japan surrendered, the plutonium production reactors at Hanford were shut down briefly to rework them for "Cold War" use. Shortcuts and problems that were considered acceptable risks during the war were not so acceptable in times of an uneasy "peace." But once these safety upgrades were made plutonium production resumed.
"The bomb saved American lives" is bullshit myth building.
U.S. leaders knew they had the ultimate weapon and chose not to tip their hand. In 1950 the U.S.A. "retired" 120 (!!!) Mark III "Fat Man" bombs of the sort that was dropped on Nagasaki. The USA had created, during the war, a weapon that would have destroyed both Japan and Germany. In some ways humanity was lucky only one of these plutonium weapons was used in warfare.
I knew a woman who survived the fire bombing of Dresden. She lost her mother, her dad was a German naval officer who survived the war. She'd suffered severe malnutrition as a child. She was my mom's age, but always had health problems. When I think about the horrors of war, I think about her. Like my mom she was just a little girl during the war. Most of those who suffer in war are entirely innocent.
Nobody "deserves" to have fire bombs or atomic bombs dropped on them.
The decision to use the atomic bombs on Japan was disgusting.