Was the invasion of Okinawa necessary

Discussion in 'Nuclear, Chemical & Bio Weapons' started by Josephwalker, Feb 22, 2019.

  1. unkotare

    unkotare Well-Known Member

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    Of course he was. Why do you think truman was placed there?
     
  2. Toggle Almendro

    Toggle Almendro Well-Known Member

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    Hiroshima was a huge military center with tens of thousands of Japanese soldiers and was the headquarters in charge of repelling our invasion of Kyushu.

    Nagasaki was an industrial center with large weapon factories.
     
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  3. ThirdTerm

    ThirdTerm Well-Known Member

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    The battleship Yamato, the flagship of the Japanese Combined Fleet in the World War II, was based in Hiroshima. The Yamato museum is located in Kure, Hiroshima, where the battleship was completed. There were major naval bases in Kure in the pre-war era as well as in Sasebo in Nagasaki, which is why the two cities were targeted. The old naval base in Sasebo is now taken over by the Americans and turned into a U.S. Navy base.

     
    Last edited: Mar 8, 2019
  4. Toggle Almendro

    Toggle Almendro Well-Known Member

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    Here's a list of links that I compiled about ten years ago. A modern search might turn up many more sites.

    "By 1945 Hiroshima had a civilian population of almost 300,000 and was an important military center, containing about 43,000 soldiers."
    http://www.globalsecurity.org/wmd/ops/hiroshima.htm

    "The city had a population of about 300,000 and was an important military center with about 43,000 soldiers."
    http://web.archive.org/web/20050925...world/0508/gallery.hiroshima/content.1.1.html

    "About 140,000 +/- 10,000 (including 20,000 soldiers) were dead by the end of December 1945"
    http://web.archive.org/web/20060901232846/hiroshimadaysydney.org/facts/Nagasaki&Hiroshima.htm

    "but wartime evacuations had reduced that number this summer morning to about 280,000 civilians, 43,000 military personnel and 20,000 Korean forced laborers and volunteer workers. Hiroshima housed the headquarters of the Japanese army's Second General [Army]."
    http://content.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,134511,00.html

    "Hiroshima was a city of considerable military importance. It contained the 2nd Army Headquarters, which commanded the defense of all of southern Japan."
    http://avalon.law.yale.edu/20th_century/mp06.asp

    "Out of 140,000 deaths, about 20,000 were considered to be those of the military service men."
    http://web.archive.org/web/20050525025545/hiroshima-cdas.or.jp/HICARE/ab2e.html

    "Hiroshima had a civilian population of almost 300,000 and was an important military center, containing about 43,000 soldiers"
    http://www.osti.gov/opennet/manhattan-project-history/Events/1945/hiroshima.htm

    "There were 43,000 soldiers based in Hiroshima, and Nagasaki was an industrial city that had turned out the torpedoes used at Pearl Harbor. Its shipyards had built some of Japan's biggest warships."
    http://old.seattletimes.com/special/trinity/articles/closer1.html

    "The bomb exploded high over the industrial valley of Nagasaki, almost midway between the Mitsubishi Steel and Arms Works, in the south, and the Mitsubishi-Urakami Ordnance Works (Torpedo Works), in the north, the two principal targets of the city."
    http://avalon.law.yale.edu/20th_century/mp07.asp

    "The hurriedly-targeted weapon ended up detonating almost exactly between two of the principal targets in the city, the Mitsubishi Steel and Arms Works to the south, and the Mitsubishi-Urakami Torpedo Works to the north."
    http://www.osti.gov/opennet/manhattan-project-history/Events/1945/nagasaki.htm

    "Mitsubishi-Urakami Torpedo Works, 1,400 feet north of ground zero, Nagasaki. Torpedoes used in the attack on Pearl Harbor were built here."
    http://www.osti.gov/opennet/manhattan-project-history/images/mitsubishi_image.htm
     
  5. Questerr

    Questerr Banned

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    The USAAF knew perfectly well what fire would do to a Japanese city.
     
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  6. APACHERAT

    APACHERAT Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    Of course they did.

    Japanese homes were constructed with paper and wood.

    Paper walls hold up against earthquakes very well.
     
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  7. Badaboom

    Badaboom Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    Not so much to fire...

    And their resistance to earthquake is mostly due to the quality of woodcraft that japanese tradesman practice still. They can make joins by hands that we can't even do correctly in the west with powertools. Watching a japanese woodworker practice is trade is quite fascinating.
     
  8. APACHERAT

    APACHERAT Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    Re: American construction practices today, it's all about the bottom line.

    Before WW ll all homes used brace framing.
    Today it's box framing.

    Look at all of the Victorian homes and craftsman homes in California today still standing after all of the earthquakes they have gone through.

    Not to many framers today would know how to frame a house using brace framing.

    You want a well built house, buy one built before 1941.
     
  9. Badaboom

    Badaboom Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    Yeah, but try to watch a few video on japanese woodworking. They elevate that trade to an art form.
    Even their hand tools work different than ours. Most of our saws and planes cut on the push, theirs cut on the pull.
     
  10. APACHERAT

    APACHERAT Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    Building a house use to be an artform before WW ll.

    What we saw starting during WW ll for the first time in America's history was building entire tract of homes first for the defense workers and after the war for the 10 million veterans returning home with their G.I. bill. no down payment for vets and low interest rates for all vets.

    Before WW ll you were able to buy a house from the Sears catalog. -> http://www.arts-crafts.com/archive/sears/

    http://www.searsarchives.com/homes/1908-1914.htm
     
  11. Badaboom

    Badaboom Well-Known Member Past Donor

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  12. APACHERAT

    APACHERAT Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    It seems that someone in the Silicon Valley (Google/Youtube) doesn't want anyone to watch the video but I'll take your word for it.

    Never mind, the video is showing up now.
     
    Last edited: Mar 8, 2019
  13. APACHERAT

    APACHERAT Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    What's different from Japan and America, Japan doesn't share a border with Mexico.

    During the 1994 Northridge earthquake, the majority of the buildings that failed was due to faulty nailing.

    Most of the homes and apartments that failed were built during the past twenty years by framers (illegal aliens) who don't even know what a nailing schedule is.
     
  14. Badaboom

    Badaboom Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    Nah, they failed for the same reason today's electronics, cars, roads, bridges, houses fails. They're built fast, with cheaper components to save $$$ and in such a way that they can't be easilly repaired or updated. And the customers are ok with this.

    And people aren't investing in multi generations family home either. Peoples today are buying a house, live in it for 5 to 10 years, sell for a profit and buy another one. I know people who changed houses more often than they replaced their cars.
     
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  15. Mushroom

    Mushroom Well-Known Member

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    Because he was Vice President.

    The VP before Truman was Henry Wallace. However, Vice President Wallace lost a lot of support among the Democratic Party in 1944 when he stated strongly that he was opposed to Segregation. This and his comments on how the crushing of the 1943 race riots in Detroit lost him most of the support of the Democratic Party, so he was replaced on the ballot.

    Gee, I bet that is not the history lesson you were expecting, was it? I suggest that next time before you try to ask such an open question, you actually know what you are asking so you do not make yourself look foolish.
     
  16. Mushroom

    Mushroom Well-Known Member

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    Point of fact, I was only 2 miles from the epicenter of the Northridge Earthquake.

    The main reason for structure failure had nothing to do with nailing.

    First, most of it was due to liquefaction. This was little understood prior to the 1989 Loma Prietta Earthquake, but was slammed home in 1994.

    Like the bay Area, much of the San Fernando Valley was essentially built on fill, either natural or man made. The Los Angeles River ran right through the heart of the SFV, and when the ground shook, essentially the ground turned to quicksand and the buildings built upon that land sank. If you look at a map of the Los Angeles River, the vast majority of the failures occurred within 1/4 mile of the river.

    The others were primarily because of "grandfathering" of older forms of construction that were allowed prior to the 1971 San Fernando Earthquake, but prohibited afterwards. Buildings built before 1971 were allowed to continue, and a great many of these failed in 1994 (spectacularly the Northridge Meadows). After 1994, all such buildings had to be retrofitted to conform to newer building standards.

    The thing that shows your claim false is that very few single family dwellings (the majority of traditional "nailed buildings") failed. The majority of failures were multi-family dwellings. And most of those that failed were in either liquefaction zones (Northridge Fashion Center), or had living spaces suspended over carports (Northridge Meadows) which failed.
     
  17. unkotare

    unkotare Well-Known Member

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    Too bad you can’t understand the meaning of the words you posted. Thanks for making my point.
     
  18. Mushroom

    Mushroom Well-Known Member

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    And what exactly is that? You have yet to actually make any points, you simply throw out some vague reference or question, then claim you are correct.

    Harry Truman never learned of the Manhattan Project until after he became President. And the VP before him never knew of it either. However, because of his work on the Truman Committee he did actually come rather close. This was a committee started in 1940 to eliminate waste in the War Department. Specifically companies making large profits on cost overruns, or substandard materials and services provided. It is estimated that they saved the government over $15 billion.

    And during these series of investigations, they actually started to look into "questionable" construction at Los Alamos and Oak Ridge. And when the committee was told those were "black" sites for projects vital to national security and had their own oversight, they backed off. So technically he "knew" of the locations that developed the bomb, even though he did not know what they were actually doing (the cover for White Sands was that it was working on bomb sites and techniques, Oak Ridge was working on new forms of RADAR). This was what most people believed, so when the Trinity test was conducted, the cover story that it was a munition dump exploding was very believable.

    But please, try to give us actual facts, and not just innuendo and things that do not even make a good conspiracy theory.
     
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  19. Robert E Allen

    Robert E Allen Banned

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    When you encounter the cops and they want to arrest you you should comply with their demands and do as they tell you. If you don't and you get hurt your injuries or even your death are entirely your fault.

    The Japanese attacked us and waged a horrible war against us, what they did to our POWs and the people they conquered. The Japanese during ww2 were nothing less than war criminals.

    Anything we could possibly have done to them was fully justified. Dropping the atomic bombs on them was justified and good.
    There was nothing wrong with our invasion of Okinawa even if a million had been killed.
    Ask the Chinese.
     
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  20. unkotare

    unkotare Well-Known Member

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    That is an entirely un-American, and morally bankrupt attitude. What a disgrace.
     
  21. Robert E Allen

    Robert E Allen Banned

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    Nope.. not at all. It's an extraordinary moral view. Once you go to war with someone itvis your responsibility to destroy their war making capability as fast as you possibly can. That attitude was shared by both Billy Mitchell and Ernst Udet. Both heros for their respective countries. You job as a war fighter is to end the war as fast as you can. That means being ruthless, fight as hard as you possibly can until your enemy surrenders unconditionally. That is how you save lives. And in a war yes your troops over their troops all day every day.
    That is the only way to fight and the only way to lead a war effort in an ethical manner.
    That's not only American it's the only moral way to fight.
    Before judging American actions during ww2 in the Pacific i strongly recommend you read up on the Rape of Nanking.
    The batton death march and how POWs were treated by the Japanese.
    The Japanese were every bit as bad as the Nazis.
    Killing lots of them to save Americans yes it was the right thing to do.

    I also don't feel bad about the British bombing Dresden either.

    It's about minimizing casualties, minimizing destruction and saving resources.

    Exactly the opposite of what Lynden Johnson did in Vietnam.

    The allies except the USSR have little to nothing to be ashamed of about WW2.

    Unless you are into revisionist history aka lying
     
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  22. Toggle Almendro

    Toggle Almendro Well-Known Member

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    Not at all. It is a perfect example of everything that is great about America.
     
  23. Mushroom

    Mushroom Well-Known Member

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    Hell, for decades those in Okinawa held a real hatred for the Japanese. Especially the military. They are the ones they blamed for the atrocities and death on their island, not the Americans.

    And you are right about "Ask the Chinese". They would go in and destroy entire villages, killing every man, woman and child in them. And even killing all of the livestock. Poison gas, mass executions, even random executions simply because they felt like it.

    Even reporting on a contest in their daily newspapers between 2 soldiers in a contest to see who could behead 100 people with a sword. A contest that was treated like a baseball contest, and even went into "Extra Innings".

    But the Americans are "morally bankrupt".

    I have already decided that there is no point in continuing with the individual who's name translates to "Poophead". He is simply a contrarian and his posts constantly ignore history.
     
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  24. Mushroom

    Mushroom Well-Known Member

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    That was of a much lesser importance than the need for use as a staging base.

    At the time that the bombs were dropped on Japan, the only air bases completed were at Kadena, Yontan, and Ie Shima. Kadena and Yontan were for use for bombers, Ie Shima was for long range escort fighters.

    [​IMG]

    It was realized when the Battle of Okinawa took longer than expected that they would not get enough bases ready in time for it to be a major bomber staging area. Plus the other bases they already had in the region were much better position for the long range Superfortress. But Okinawa was a good location for an emergency air base.

    The main reason for Okinawa was as a staging area. The top speed of most WWII troopships was only around 10 MPH. And the distance from Okinawa to Kyushu was just under 600 statute miles. That is roughly 2 and a half days sailing. And it is always a huge benefit to stage your landing forces as close to the target as possible.

    At the time of the surrender, a massive fleet was already being assembled on Okinawa. The order of battle called for 42 carriers, 24 battleships, and over 400 escorts in addition to over 120 transports. My grandfather was actually on one of them, the USS Suwannee CVE-27, which had been at the island since the battle begun. And it had been rushed to Okinawa after being heavily damaged in the Battle of Leyte Gulf the year before. They remained on Okinawa after the battle, as they were to have taken part in Operation Olympic.

    Instead, his ship was one of the first to arrive at Nagasaki for occupation duty.

    But as there were going to be 14 divisions taking part on that phase of the invasion there were simply not enough escorts to carry them all. So putting the next waves of forces as close to Kyushu was of critical importance. As even returning and loading up the next waves as fast as they could, it would be almost a week before the transports could arrive with more forces.
     
    Last edited: Aug 25, 2022
  25. Farnsworth

    Farnsworth Well-Known Member

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    My father's regiment from Okinawa into Japan.

    https://www.511pir.com/blog/japan/246-the-landings-at-atsugi-japan-on-august-30-1945

    no one shed any tears when news of the atomic bombs' destruction at Hiroshima and Nagasaki spread through the Division's Okinawa camps. But there wasn't any wild celebrating either.

    Fits what my Dad said about when they heard about the A bombs. They went back to playing poker. They weren't really sure what those were until they saw the movies everybody else saw. They did see some of the destruction and victims, though, later on. They were definitely happily surprised at the surrender.
     
    Last edited: Dec 11, 2022

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