CAA: Christian Anime Alliance

I visited Hiroshima in April. You would never guess, from the shops and arcades that initially greet you, that sixty years ago this city stood in ruins, obliterated by a single bomb. Walking from the train station, you only get hints - signs that say this particular tree was 1,030 meters from the hypocenter and so on - and until you get to the river, you are almost unaware of the history...

I've seen a number of the world's great buildings and historical sites, and most of them have left me flat. Not here. I turned the corner and there it stood, smaller than I imagined, but no less haunting. Striking in its austerity, it has a twisted beauty that I can't quite do justice to in a description.

I set up my tripod and took pictures from several different angles. I wanted myself in a photograph, but I couldn't exactly describe the peculiar workings of my camera to a Japanese stranger -- pressing the button doesn't always result in the camera taking a picture. So I stood and arm's length away and...

Debated. Should I smile? It seemed incongruous. This isn't Space Mountain or the Grand Canyon. Every person who worked in this building on August 6, 1945 died in a single, horrifying moment. No matter they were our enemies at the time, or that they (and their countrymen) might have visited similar violence on even more innocent civilians. Among other things, we should refrain from dancing on graves.

So, I took the picture -- me, the grimacing middle-aged gaijin in sneakers wandering a city that, were it not for that day, would probably not be recognized or remembered by the vast majority of the world's population...

http://www.yurusareta.net/images/ABD.jpg

Sixty years ago. Hard to imagine something like that happening less than a century ago. The picture is beautiful, granted, but in a very solemn, haunting way.

Yes, the ruins just give me the chills- not like some ruins that make you want to find more and see what next. Just knowing what happened all changes it.

Yes, it was a sad event. Just imagine, however, if the US had to bring forces into Japan to quell thier military. I have heard people argue that the atomc bomb was neccesary and it did kill many innocent lives however an invasion of american troops on japanese soil would of caused for innocents kills, americans and japanese soliders killed, and a possible bleak future down the road between Japanese and American relations.

Anyways, very thought provoking picture and scenary. I would love to visit it myself when I visit Japan in the near future.

That was a pretty gripping post there. Definitely a lot of food for thought in the entire issue.

On that subject, I recently discovered that US casualties were estimated to be around 500,000 for a Japanese invasion. 23 million Japanese fighters were prepared to die in the defense effort.

Those numbers make current casualty counts in Iraq look small, don't they?

Yep, the Iraq war is pretty much the least bloody war we've ever fought.

And yes, the dropping of the atomic bomb was necesarry. Did research on it, and had we invaded Japan, there would have been mass suicides there, the majority of the Japanese people group living there killing themselves in an attemt to go out without suffering defeat at the hands of their enemies. The holocaust would have paled in comparison to that much death.

Targetting civilians in any war is never right no matter how you try to justify it.
I'm currently reading Gods And Generals and just read Lee's reaction as he saw
the reuslt of the Union army's looting of Fredericksburg.
IMO the bombings were totally unjustified for the following reasons:
1)Hiroshima and Nagasaki were not military targets,rather they held large
civilian populations and it was the civilians and not the military that suffered the most.
2)There were large numbers of Allied P.O.W.s that were held nearby who could have easily have been executed in reprisal if the bombings had failed or on the
other hand could have easily died with the Japanese.
3)No military leader,especially Eisenhower,ever concluded that the bombings were
necessary.
4)By that time there were very few actual die hard Militarists around.In fact an
attempted coup to overthrow the Emperor failed in the very last days of the war
and the Militarists either committed suicide or were arrested.
5)We don't know what the Japanese population would have actually have done
since it never happened the war ended before there was an invasion so it's all
speculation.
6)A simple Naval blockade would have ended the war just as rapidly since by then
the Japanese mainland would have been cut off from the needed supplies in Manchuria and the rest of Asia.

Funny how these things always turn into political arguments...

I imagine this one will be locked soon...

AnimeHeretic wrote:Funny how these things always turn into political arguments...

I imagine this one will be locked soon...

I was about to go on about the subject but you've held me back. thank you

now for the sake of keeping topics alive lets not turn this into a political debate for once.

That picture is really eerie! This is definitely a point of interest if I ever decide to visit Japan, which right now seems unlikely =)

lol... Eisenhower never said that the bombs were necesarry because he died before they were ever used.

And historians have pointed out that such a thing would happen to the population of Japan... Also, Robert McNamera made a good point in his film the Fog of War, which can be used for this instance... How he justified the incendary bombings used on Tokyo was by pointing out that it was better for the enemy to loose the 100000 that they lost in that night than for our army to lose 10000 trying to take Japan by sea and foot, not counting Japanese losses in such an invasion. We lost 1 man in that opperation.

Through the atomic bombs, the risk of having to try to invade Japan was avoided. Of course, death and killing is never a good thing, but those who were in charge of the war at that time took the time to weigh the pros and cons of every attack angle and chose the one that they thought would cause the least grief in the end.

No matter what, it's history that happened in the past... and nothing can change that now. It was a learning experiance for both sides of the war.

AnimeHeretic wrote:Funny how these things always turn into political arguments...

I imagine this one will be locked soon...

Sorry for kinda starting it!

Um...::flusters::

It's kind hard for me to be particularly sad about that day. I truly believe that the bombs saved lives(both American and Japanese). I kinda wish someone would explain this to the Japanese. I'd love to see that debate.

Anyway, here's two interesting articles about the subject:

http://www.nationalreview.com/hanson/hanson200508050714.asp

Sorry, couldn't find a link for this one:

By MAKI BECKER
DAILY NEWS STAFF WRITER Hiroshima survivor Tomiko Morimoto West
http://www.nydailynews.com/ips_rich...l%20&%20bro.JPG Tomiko at 13 with friend
LAGRANGEVILLE, N.Y. - Sixty years later, Tomiko Morimoto West still remembers the low drone of the B-29 that flew over Hiroshima and changed her life forever. She was just 13. The horrific atomic blast on Aug. 6, 1945, all but wiped out her hometown in an instant. Her widowed mother was killed, and her grandparents would die later in agony.

"They left me all by myself," she said.

All alone, she suffered the effects of radiation sickness, which may have contributed to her inability to have children. But she is not bitter.

West, now 73 and a retired Vassar College lecturer, believes the atomic bomb that robbed her of her family and her innocence saved countless lives - Japanese and American.

"If it was not for the atomic bomb, we [Japanese] were in such a mental state, we would have fought until the last person," said West, who was taught as a little girl how to fight with a sharpened bamboo stick in the event of an invasion.

"I never, never, never hated the Americans," said West, who now lives near Poughkeepsie and is married to a former G.I.

On the morning of Aug. 6, 1945, West was in a factory courtyard with other girls her age, where they worked to support the war. She recalled how they all looked up at the American plane in the cloudless sky.

"Suddenly, there was a flash," she said.

She wouldn't know until much later that a 5-ton atomic bomb had been dropped on her city. Forty thousand people were killed instantly. Another 100,000, including her grandparents, would die by the end of the year from wounds and radiation sickness.

After the flash, she saw a brilliant orange orb, the color of the sun as it sets in the ocean, erupt in the sky - and she hit the ground.

When she looked up, the buildings around her and much of the city were on fire. The students ran up a small mountain to escape the flames.

Her teacher told the students, "You have to stay until somebody comes to pick you up."

But no one came for West. So when morning came, the teacher told her to go home.

West was stunned by the hellish ruins of Hiroshima. Burned soldiers, their skin dripping off their arms, begged her for water. Wailing mothers stopped her to ask if she had seen their children. A charred trolley car was packed with lifeless passengers still hanging onto the handrail. As she crossed a bridge over a river, she looked down and saw "a sea of dead people."

When West finally reached her home, she found it flattened. "I didn't know where to go," she said.

West tracked down her grandparents in a mountain cave surrounded by other wounded survivors. "I remember the horrible smell," she said. Her grandfather was hurt, with shards of glass embedded in his back.

About a week later, she went back to her house and found her mother's body crumpled in the rubble. "I guess [the house] came down on her."

On Aug. 15, a week after a second A-bomb was dropped, on Nagasaki, Japan surrendered.

Within the next 10 days her grandparents died, and the teenager had to cremate them both by herself. West became sick and went to the Americans for treatment.

As an adult, she learned English and met a G.I. named Melvin West. He was "very cute, very quiet," she said.

He went back to the U.S. and they exchanged letters for several years before he invited her to join him. They were soon married, and settled in Lagrangeville.

This weekend, as she has done for so many previous A-bomb anniversaries, West and her husband will participate in somber memorials. "It gives me a chance to mourn," she said.

West believes the horror and sadness of her youth taught her to appreciate life.

"I live amid the trees, surrounded by nature, and I get up every morning and I'm so happy," she said. "I feel I'm the luckiest person."

Originally published on August 5, 2005

One more thing to remember is that the Axis scientists were well on their way to creating atomic bombs; they already had planes that could deliver one to the United States.

Regardless of whether the bomb was necessary or not, which is not what this thread is about, there were many lives lost and many families torn apart, which is what this thread is about. It doesn't matter what side these people were on, what they were going to do if there was an invasion, or what the country thinks of the US now, people DIED and I think that we at least owe them some due respect by not turning a thread commemorating something very SAD that happened into a political cat fight or a history lesson.

My family left Nagasaki a generation before the A-bomb hit, fought for the US during the war, and never they once hated America for what happened, and neither did a lot of Japanese Americans. Is it still sad that it did happen? Yes. So let's leave it at that.

Kokoro Daisuke wrote:Regardless of whether the bomb was necessary or not, which is not what this thread is about, there were many lives lost and many families torn apart, which is what this thread is about. It doesn't matter what side these people were on, what they were going to do if there was an invasion, or what the country thinks of the US now, people DIED and I think that we at least owe them some due respect by not turning a thread commemorating something very SAD that happened into a political cat fight or a history lesson.

My family left Nagasaki a generation before the A-bomb hit, fought for the US during the war, and never they once hated America for what happened, and neither did a lot of Japanese Americans. Is it still sad that it did happen? Yes. So let's leave it at that.

Well said

frwl wrote:lol... Eisenhower never said that the bombs were necesarry because he died before they were ever used.

Sorry, but I have to clear this up (being the Eisenhower fan I am.). Eisenhower was our 34th president during the 50s after being Allied Supreme Commander during WW 2. He passed away in '69. Are you thinking about Roosevelt?

Link Antilles wrote:Sorry, but I have to clear this up.... being the Eisenhower fan I am. Eisenhower was our 34th president during the 50s after being Allied Supreme Commander during WW 2. He passed away in '69. Are you thinking about Roosevelt?

Yes, it would have to be Roosevelt who died before they were used. It was Truman who made the decision to use them

ja, srry, brainfartted back there

That picture, for some reason, doesn't inspire reaction in me...
I have never had a reaction to things of that nature. Even when touring the Holocaust Museum. I don't know why. It doesnt seem distant or anything, just there. Like I expect such terrible things to happen, and there is nothing I can do about the past. Kinda like learning that you had an uncle that died before you were born. You know that you are missing something, or something terrible happened, but... I don't know...

?

I was about to say...Eisenhower was a President

Consider the fervency the Japanese soldiers fought with against the Allies. Especially for islands that probably wouldn't even be on a world map had there not been a battle there. Entire garrisons on Tarawa, Saipan, Okinawa, Luzon for example fought literally to the death. We're talking 27,000 guys on Saipan (mass suicides some number in the teens surrendered) and 140,000 on Okinawa, that kind of range. Not too many Japanese POW's left after numbers like that.

Firebombing in WWII was much damaging to cities back in this time, considering how innacurate indirect fire weapons were back then. And Hiroshima was a military city but also it had been virtually untouched by bombing. It had been one since the Russo Japanese War. It was at the forefront of their military dominance then. It just became a more economic powerhouse by the time Japan started it's expansion. And also let me state that WWII was a total war for every side that fought. A total war in which you're entire economy is built around supporting that war. As sad as it seems it's just as important to destroy the warmachine as the ones using them. Sad fact of war back in this time.

Regardless it's still a undeniably sad thing that happened. Debating about whether more lives would of been lossed either way doesn't change the fact that still alot of people died. We should pray for the lives lost on every side in the War, pray for those still suffering from the effects of the bombs, and that no nation will ever have to use such destructive weapons like that again.

Yeah guys, don't get this thread closed. It wouldn't be fair to ClosetOtaku, who just wanted to show us the photo and share his experience.

Markus wrote:That picture, for some reason, doesn't inspire reaction in me...
I have never had a reaction to things of that nature. Even when touring the Holocaust Museum. I don't know why. It doesnt seem distant or anything, just there. Like I expect such terrible things to happen, and there is nothing I can do about the past. Kinda like learning that you had an uncle that died before you were born. You know that you are missing something, or something terrible happened, but... I don't know...

?

I understand a little bit. Somethings that affected my parents when they were younger (such as JFK being assassinated) affects me but not as it does to them.

However, when I toured the Halocaust Museum in D.C. this summer, I nearly broke down in tears (defiently when going into the room with all the shoes).

I'm a bit of a WWII history buff and I, of course, have my own opinion about the bomb and the rest of the war in the pacific. None of those opinions is appropriate for this thread.

Two days ago and tomorrow both mark an event that can not be forgotten. We must always remember the human cost associated with our political differences. That is the lesson of Hiroshima, Nagasaki, Baton, Auschwitz, Nanking, and over a dozen other sites of brutal warfare during WWII. If anyone doesn't know what any of those words represent, PM me and I'll be glad to share. We need to know our mistakes as well as our successes.

Is there such a thing as a just war? I think so, but no country in WWII was innocent of atrocities.

Thank you, ClosetOtaku for reminding us of our shared history. My prayer is that we learn from it.

Why this was left open I have no idea. Locked.