We wanted to pin a comment on the enormous impact of the atomic bombing, but RUclips keeps hiding our comment. We will continue in our fight to make bring you the history that matters despite the censorship of our work. Never Forget.
Thanks for the historical revionism Spartacus: 1) Despite the fact part of the government was willing to surrender and was trying to do so AFTER Hiroshima/Nagasaki/Soviet invasion, there was a coup attempt to prevent the surrender from happening. Spartacus makes no mention of this. 2) Why do all these ''the nuke was just to scare the Soviets'' or ''the Japs were already defeated'' historical revionists ALWAYS avoid talking about the coup? This is just as bad as how many WWII tragedies that left scars in nations that weren't even mentioned in the WWII show (for example: the Dutch alone never got a single mention on this channel about the February 41/Sep 43 strikes, mad tuesday or the May 1940 battles, and the famine which killed 20.000 civilians only a 1-minute mention ''on the side'')
@@evocorporation6537 On 26 July, 1945 (Berlin time), the Potsdam Conference issued a declaration on the terms for the surrender of Japan. When the Potsdam Declaration was received in Japan over shortwave, the Minister for Foreign Affairs Shigenori Tōgō brought a copy to the Emperor of Japan, Hirohito. After going over the declaration point by point, the emperor asked Tōgō if those terms "were the most reasonable to be expected in the circumstances". Tōgō said that they were. The emperor said, "I agree. In principle they are acceptable." In late July, however, the other ministers were not ready to accept the declaration. Direct from Wikipedia. They planned to accept the term even before any nukes fell and Soviets came. If i can counter your whole idea just by copy pasting Wiki article you might want to reconsider your position.
i said it before and will say it again. this group of people who make this channel possible should earn some kind a world award. making history so detailed but still captivating is a once in a lifetime feat. i salute you
Instead they get treated like shit by the likes of RUclips and their questionable (at best) sponsors. RUclips should arguably be paying out of pocket for content like this.
I visited the Hiroshima museum. Many people were openly weeping at the exhibits. Eternal thanks to the TimeGhost team for your incredible work over these past few years. Episodes like this one should be mandatory viewing for all human beings. Incredibly informative and deeply touching.
@@bloodrave9578 I guess that makes sense. Maybe I'm just desensitized to it at this point. Hiroshima and Nagasaki don't strike me as any different than Berlin, Dresden, Nurnburg, Tokyo, or Kagoshima, really. No one ever talks about the casualties who perished AFTER those raids, only the ones who died in them. To me, nukes are hardly more a step up from conventional bombs as machine guns are to bolt-actions.
As this war comes to an end, everyone involved in making this series should be recognized worldwide for their extreme and in many cases such as this one, very graphic detail, describing the horrors of such a war and in particular, the use of nuclear weapons. This series should be an award winning series and should be shown in schools everywhere.
Gripping delivery of terrible events! Thank you, and indeed that end message is chillingly apt at this very point in human history. I'm afraid we're bound to repeat, and surpass, the errors of the past...
My grandfather lied about his age and joined the army in late 1944 he trained to take part in operation Olympic instead he was a part of the first generation of American troops to occupy tokyo he has some pretty amazing photos of Mt Fuji from his time there. He never spoke much of his time in Japan but once he did mention he visited Hiroshima as part of a military escort. He never said much beyond that but he struggled with melanoma (skin cancer) in his later life and had splotchy skin as early as his 40s when I as a young boy asked him about he only ever told me that he got sunburned so bad and so often in the army that it gave him freckles. He was in the army for less than 2 years. As I've learned more about this was I always wondered if there was a connection.
I have been to Hiroshima this January. It's now a city of 2 million people. To visit the city center, where it exploded, was an incredible experience. Somehow they rebuilt the city turned it back into a home. Still, I am a strong advisory of "si vic pacem, para bellum" (if you desire peace, prepare for war). I strongly believe that, if both the US and the USSR didn't have the fission and later fusion bombs, that a third world war would have happened sometime in the late 50s/early 60s. Using violence and military force is comparatively easy: you don't need to listen to your adversary. You don't need to think too hard. You don't need to be objectively right. As long as you have the bigger stick than your adversary, you can impose your will. However, if your adversary can hit you just as hard as you can hit your adversary, then the option of violence becomes a much more troublesome one and you are actually forced to negotiate with words, instead of force. Therefore, I am convinced that the existence of those bombs are one of the major reasons why there has not been a more destructive war since the Second World War 79 years ago. Consequently, I imagine a world without nuclear weapons to be much more violent than what it is today, and even advocate for periodic public testing of nuclear weapons to remind all those in power (and those, who once will be in power) that the offensive usage of those weapons shall never be an option.
An interesting take, although I disagree with a lot of it. The biggest question I have is where would we make nuclear tests, since one of the reasons the detonations have stopped it’s due to public outcry to it, as well as the environmental damage
The problem is that they DON'T force you to negotiate with words. They just make the consequences of using force much, much higher. You can still be willing, and even eager, to accept those consequences. There are people who had nearly enough authority to launch nukes who were willing to do it, and almost did. The counter-pressure from people who were not willing to accept those consequences was there at those times, but it is NOT a guarantee that it will be there next time, or the time after that, or the time after that. What you said is correct inasmuch as that it makes the bar for major powers being willing to war with each other higher than it would otherwise be. But it may ultimately be a decision between a world which is periodically hellishly violent, and a world which no longer exists at all.
That's how FDR was convinced by Einstein and other scientists to start developping it. If it's an inevitability given the scientific knowledge, better be the first to have it, lest others have a monopoly on it for some time.
The part of the biopic that I liked so much was the animating spirit of the scientists of the Manhattan Project early-on: They were absolutely driven by the desire to get the bomb built before the *Nazis* much more so than their (at the time) ally, the USSR. If the project had always been aimed at either just building the Bomb, or initially aimed at the eventual enemy of the Soviet Union; I have a very strong belief that the scientific minds involved would not have been as driven and animated as they were in real life when confronted by the specter of a 'nazified' Europe. While it's easy to paint those academics as naïve dreamers in retrospect, you'd be hard pressed to find another collection of professors and engineers similarly convinced they're saving the world one Bomb design at a time.
Thats a moronic argument. In the same level of “I will do it first because the other guy will do it anyway.” Until humanity stops that mentality we will continue falling for this mistake over and over
I understand that this is a fraught subject, and I believe you did handle it fairly well. But there are a couple things I take issue with. For one thing, there is a false dichotomy between the "war hawk and peace dove" factions. From the very beginning Japan sought to defeat the United States tactically and force a negotiated treaty. There was no way they could have landed on he west coast, no realistic chance of a Man in the High Castle scenario. And even after the war turned decisively against Japan, as your own weekly episodes show, the Japanese leadership threw countless men into the fray to wear the Allies down. It was always a debate between those willing to give up more for peace and those who wanted to grind down the Americans to force a negotiated armistice which would let them keep much of their military and leadership intact. To the very end the cabinet was split. And secondly, I think skipping over the "Kyuju Incident", the attempted coup d'etat by elements of the Japanese military, is leaving out the important part of this picture that the high command was not in as tight control of the military as is shown. That indeed there was a fear that even if the government surrendered it would simply be overthrown by lower ranking officers, which was pretty much borne out when they tried just that after the Atomic bombings and Soviet invasion.
Terrifying episode. We should all be reminded every day of the destruction waiting to happen. Its only until we rid ourselves of these weapons, and learn to live with each other in peace will the future of mankind be assured. Thank you for the content. Thank for reminding me what war really means.
I very much appreciate your summation of global nuclear weapons statistics without separating the tallies by various nations. Only the whole and combined "we". I believe the only way forward in taking responsibility for the state of humanity is by adopting that worldview. There is no "them", there is only "we". The heroes, the victims and the worst war criminals all belong to the same family. If the Hitlers and Stalins are ones of us, how do we take responsibility for ourselves?
I don't think Japan was that close to surrender as being indicated. Its important to remember that there was an attempted coup after they formally surrounded.
Operatives in the imperial Cabinet had to engage in some significant work to stampede the dedicated war warty into accepting surrender. This was after Nagasaki and the USSR declaration so the argument that the people in control in Japan wanted surrender is suspect.
Several years before, the Japanese leadership had decided, *against expert advice,* to assemble the most powerful attack fleet in history and take it to Hawaii. For years, at every subsequent setback, with every increasingly clear indication of looming defeat their choice was to continue. Being ready to surrender is all very well, but when all your previous actions have inclined your foe to assume the contrary, getting round to it sooner might have been a good idea.
I always enjoy the content of this Channel. But my compliments on this particular Episode. My father went through Hiroshima around Feb of '46. His observation was that he hopped the world would never again see anything like what he saw. He would have enjoyed this presentation.
My own history teacher said that the bombing was, of course, partly to speed up the war, but also to force the japanese to surrender before the soviets could get any major gains. I'm not sure what others think, but that's what she said. I do agree that truman really ought to have waited for the japanese reaction to manchuria.
Thanks for the serious, honest presentation of the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. I don't know if you are going to discuss the morality of these events in a separate episode, but I thought this video did well to summarize the morality of the bombings.
Its amazing how atomic power can achieve such a duality. It can either provide energy for cities for years and years or unleash energy on a city for just a minute.
This episode is once again not really talking so much about something I don't know the overall details of but the detailed descriptions do really show the true grotesque details of even the smallest nuclear weapons. And as irony has it my friends and I started playing the game ICBM recently... You control continent sized nations and slowly build up your arsenal on nuclear weapons as you also research more and more means to help you "win" the oncomming conflict. We played a few rounds before and when you don't make the connection to the real world one might believe that nuclear weapons aren't that bad as "only" 10s of millions die on each continent directly after the bombs hit. But yesterday was different, we played the same round for around 2 real hours before we decided to all launch our arsenals to bring it to an end. An hour before that happened I said something along the lines of "Guys, I don't want to start it. Our militaries might be fighting but I don't want to doom all those people." Nuclear submarines with missiles where stationed around my enemies, hundreds of planes where ready to deliver everything from small tactical and 50 megaton bombs to every single military unit and civilian population centre on the map. And it only got worse by the minute. Finally, around the two hour mark we fired our weapons of mass genocide. Planes and missiles where everywhere and I think that no city was unscaved. A city in china was hit just once and suffered "only" around 300.000 dead. Other cities, in Indonesia for example, where hit for a grand total of 113 times and less than 1000 people came out alive from a city that once inhabited millions. The game wasn't designed to be played as long as me and my friends did but we maybe only reached together a tenth of the amount of nuclear weapons that the United States currently has. As I began thinking about what has happened in Hiroshima, Nagasaki, our game and how many nuclear weapons there are in real life I was in a temporary state of shock and bitter sadness. Nuclear weapons are probably humanities most horrible invention, and if the brute of nuclear war somehow breaks loose then I have no doubt in that only a very small amount of people will survive and that there will be billions of people who will suffer an unnecessary terrific death.
Surrender meant very different things between the US and Japan. Japan viewed surrender as more like an armistice were they would retain conquered lands with no occupation. But to say “Japan believes….” Elides a great deal because of the the high command was riven with respect to what surrender meant and so could mean many things to many people. Unconditional surrender has a very specific legal meaning, one of the points that it allows the conqueror to occupy and completely remake all civilian and legal systems of the conquered nation. The Japanese had no intention of unconditional surrender or at least, the “peace wing” may have know but would refuse to clarify to the hawks because of risk of assassination, and the only thing they obsessed over about the emperor because it was they all could agree on and distracted the hawks from other, less palatable aspects of the proposed surrender in the Potsdam dec. The fact that in the emperors address there was no mention of the Russians joining the war but he talks about the bomb should give some hint as to the calculation that went into the final decision. In the conversation about the utilization of the bomb, I’ve noticed that the number of Chinese that were dying on a daily basis are rarely mentioned. While commentators now, hem and haw about a day here or there, 10s of thousands of Chinese, on a daily basis, soldier and civilians were dying at the hands of the Japanese. I should also note that I’ve known Japanese civilians who greatly benefited from the occupation of both Korea and China.
Mr. Olsson makes two references to the "USBSS." I think he is referring to the postwar 'U.S. Strategic Bombing Survey,' which was a comprehensive study of the effects of Allied bombing in WW2. As I recall, the efficacy was lower, because anti-aircraft accuracy at low altitudes drove aircraft to use higher, and less precise, altitudes.
Sparty, you failed to make clear that the Military leaders of Japan had placed the Emperor under house arrest and prevented him from communicating to anyone else because they knew he wanted to end the war and would do that if allowed. It is entirely, completely, and solely the Japanese Military 'war-hawks' who are to blame for the war reaching this point. This needs to be emphasized so people can learn to never allow that kind of people to have power ever again even if you agree with their cause. Never forget that we get what we allow to happen.
Looking at it from a purely Strategic point of view, the atomic bombs actually maintained peace on a global scale. I know people will argue about it, but east verses west, Free verses Totalitarian would have been a hot war, killing many millions more that WWII did. Is it a concern? yes. Is it something to lose sleep over? no.
My father was stationed on Tinian between January and October 1945 as part of a 6-man Signal Service unit that received a Meritorious Service commendation but the application for that award is silent on the reason why. Given my father's - at the time - future career which saw him travel the world, setting up US military surveillance systems, I have a feeling he knew a lot more than he said. He maintained that almost nobody on the island knew that anything was going on at the northern end of the island. Given the stories written about the press coverage, the Hollywood-style build-up - complete with kleig lights illuminating the Enola Gay at night, reporters asking questions, a flood of military higher-ups, etc - that is hard to believe. He never said a word but he kept a picture postcard of the Enola Gay taking off - he threw out his wedding album and honeymoon album and tossed all the family photographs that the kids didn't grab when we had the chance - but he kept every photograph he took on Tinian and every postcard souvenir he bought.
I can't comment on this w/o becoming angry about the Jews who were slaughtered by the millions. How many lives would have to be sacrificed to stop the Axis powers? The fewer Allied deaths the better, whatever it took is what it took to end the killings. How many civilians were killed by the Blitz? How many civilians were killed throughout Asia? The number must be astronomical in China alone, is a Chinaman less than a European? How about the Filipinos? Add in the number of Allied POWs slaughtered and again, as far as I'm concerned, whatever it took, it took. Never forget.
Sparatcus: it was snowing Me: oh, no... Spartacus: girls were smearing snow on their faces and even putting it on thier tongues Me: ... looks like I paid enough attention during civil defense course
Kokura was the second city on the list and was spared Fat Man's destruction as the weather plane reported cloudy conditions over the city. My then teenaged mother lived in Kokura and worked for a ball bearing plant. I exist...because of clouds.
"Kokura's Luck" is coined from this event. It is defined as having escaped a great tragedy or misfortune without even knowing you were in peril in the first place. And it wasn't just clouds. Lingering smoke from a nearby bombing raid worsened visibility over Kokura. Also, an ingenious factory worker at one of the Kokura plants sensed that the area was about to be hit by some type of aerial attack, and introduced chemicals into his boilers or furnaces to produce thicker smoke to make using bomb sights difficult for the attacking Americans.
Nagasaki was bombed as the Tertiary (not secondary) target because after multiple passes over the primary target Kokura the bomber “Bockscar”couldn’t see the target. “Bockscar”ran out of fuel at the end of the runway at Okinawa due to delays on route and a failed fuel pump. Nagasaki was bombed because it was on the shortest path from Kokura to Okinawa and the bomb was not “impact safe” (it would detonate if dropped even if not armed).
Ted Fujita, one of the world's foremost meteorologists, was in Kokura at the time, as well. He is responsible for most of the research and knowledge we have on tornadoes and similar severe weather phenomena
I got to talk to a vet who worked on B-29's on Tinian. When a mission was ordered each plane was checked out mechanically, then loaded with bombs and fueled. After that a sargeant with a pistol would guard the plane until the crew came to start the mission. One day he saw a captain guarding one plane with a tommy gun and he thought that was really strange. Turns out, it was the Enola Gay about to bomb Hiroshima.
My father was all-in on science. Except for nuclear energy. I did not understand why. He didn't talk much about what he did in WWII. He was an army medic. After he died my mother told me that he was in the first team of medics who went into Nagasaki. That explained a lot of things. I remember family talking about building bomb shelters. I remember my father saying he would never build a fallout shelter; he would go out in the yard and get killed by the initial blast.
If you're ever in Hiroshima, visit the museum. It's . . . heavy. It was weird the day we went, because there was a tour group of middle school kids, so the vibe of all these energetic kids was rather at odds with the content.
Yeah you get a lot more from this than some Wikipedia article. I never realized it was this bad in Hiroshima. The article just doesn't really convey that.
He called war against humanity an event that saved and reiceves more gratitude from asians and japanese than any other saved ethnicity under threat and under the war reaper.. That's a lot of sour coating
Spartacus on the history of money: Never forge it. Spartacus on the lucky numbers in keno: Never 'four,' git! Spartacus on the optimal position in a phalanx: Never fore! Get it? And, of course, Spartacus on the value of passwords: Never forget!
It will be interesting when we get to the point in the Korean War where MacArthur and Truman are butting heads on the use of atomic weapons in that conflict. Another powerful episode, Sparty and much needed in this day and age. Sharing this far and wide.
@@WorldWarTwoHi!! I watched this episode, and I was a bit puzzled, as I was expecting you guys/ladies to take an explicit position either for or against the atomic bombings of Japan. Why did Sparty not say either "the bombings were necessary to win the war" or "the atomic bombings were unjustifiable and constituted genocide." I ask this because this has been debated by historians for decades. I would have thought you would seek to lay this to rest once and for all!! Edit: I know this is a history channel and that you generally just report the facts, but certainly you must have an opinion on this question. Just wanted to ask.
"Albert, when I came to you with those calculations, we thought we might start a chain reaction that would destroy the entire world" "I remember it well. What of it ?" "I believe we did"
@@c1ph3rpunk Truman or FDR, the cat was in the bag. The Soviets had spies who sent blueprints to Moscow, in a few years they'd have had a bomb... At least Truman had the foresight to use great restraint on the matter, such as denying MacArthur its use in Korea/Manchuria.
@@Duke_of_Lorraine What's often overlooked about Truman's response to the bomb, especially compared to his comments following the disastrous meeting with Oppenheimer, is that he was emotionally affected by it. Upon it's use on Hiroshima & Nagasaki, he was thrilled about its success and would publicly hail it as one of the greatest scientific achievements known to man; however, after the war ended and he was shown then-classified intel on the devastation the weapons caused he changed his tune. He then started referring to atomic weaponry as "the most terrible bomb in the history of the world" and began establishing fail-safes for their use.
I met an old Japanese man in The town I used to live in Corona California. He was sitting at the bus stop every single day by the library when I would pass by on the bus. So one day I decided to get off the bus and sit next to him. I got into a conversation with him and started learning about his life story. Turned out he was actually at Hiroshima and he had a bunch of bleaching on his skin from the radiation Burns. He was in a bunker at the time, not in the center of Hiroshima but on the outskirts being briefed on a Kamikaze flight that he was to embark on in the coming weeks with what was left of the Japanese Air Force. When the bomb dropped he was curious to see what had happened so he opened the door to the bunker after a period of time and that's when he suffered the radiation Burns as the mushroom cloud could still be seen in the sky. He was interesting, especially because he was explaining why Japan did what they did from his own personal family perspective. His dad was in commerce before the war and when The American government started the embargo and froze Japanese assets. His family lost most of their wealth. One of his older brothers died in China. Another one died in Burma and another one died in the Philippines. He was the youngest and the last to be enlisted. He never actually saw combat. He only ever trained briefly for his Kamikaze fight which never happened as the war ended soon after. But he felt very justified in the causes for the war, even if he acknowledged the terrible cost it had and the crimes that were committed. I never got his first name but he went by Mr. Tanaka. I thought he was a very interesting and kind man and I appreciated that he shared his story with me.
Surprisingly, the Japanese had like 10k airplanes parked away and hidden ready for invasion. All to be kamikaze, of course. Just little actual combat aircraft, let alone formations and trained pilots.
The nuclear raids of Hiroshima and Nagasaki was Truman's attempt to warn Joseph Stalin of America is aware of the Soviet army 's further advancing into central Europe.
I'm a US baby boomer and my parents had a copy of John Hersey's book Hiroshima, referenced in the video I was deeply moved by the book growing up. In the late 1960's while in the USMC I was in Japan and visited Hiroshima Peace Park. There is a diorama showing the effects of the bomb.
The question should be how many Japanese would have died if the bombs were not used? The continued bombing, the lack of food and medical, and an actual invasion probably would have resulted in 5,000,000 or even 10,000,000 Japanese lives being lost, maybe more. That is not factoring the loss of Ally lives, in lest we forget, a war that Japan started and wouldn't stop. For the people who talk about how horrible the bombs were, they always fail to mention how much more horrible the alternative would have been.
And to add on, had the invasion route been chosen, not only do you have the casualties from both sides, but you risk wiping out portions of future generations of Americans and Japanese if the casualty count was as bad, if not worse than expected. Those against the bomb who had descendants fight in the Pacific or would've been eligible had we opted to invade fail to note that if their descendant died in the fighting, they don't exist.
@@finchborat People also forget that the Japanese were engaged in combat in Manchuria and other places with no intent to cease. The bomb ended those operations and also saved the lives of countless people in those areas as well.
To add to this, the reason why there were a lot of hiroshima victims was because the army prevented any further medical assistance as it would be used for the imminent allied landings. Even amidst the literal sun dropped on them they still wanted to fight thats how fanatical they are
It's very hard to listen to the accounts of the survivors of the bombing. Very, very hard. I've always been one who puts the blame of the atomic bombings on the Japanese Military Leadership themselves. I'm biased - my grandfather only lived because the atomic bombs were dropped when they were (he was a civilian prisoner in a Japanese camp in Malaysia. He was very close to death when the surrender was given). I only exist because the bombs were dropped. But... I can't deny the horror of what the civilians of Nagasaki and Hiroshima went through. It's not in this video, but I read an account of a mother trying to help her children out of the rubble, but there was a fire coming and she wasn't fast enough. She saw her child burned to death in front of her. Her guilt, her anguish, made me stop reading that book for quite some time. I couldn't go on. Every leader of every nuclear power should be forced to watch and read the accounts of survivors from these two cities. This cannot be allowed to occur again.
Not for the first time in this series has Sparty's War Against Humanity made me stop what I'm doing and made me stand and listen. So powerful and sad...
I remember the comment section on the holocaust episode which mentionend that Mr Olson was crying after reporting it. In watching today I think this episode must have had the same effect. How can you research the events, watch those photos and footage, describe all these horrible effects and NOT be shattered? At some moments I could bare continue to listen, let alone watch... And his summary from 40: onwards sent chills down my spine. Most important work. Kudos for your strength and dedication.
I went to Hiroshima once and was amazed that there was a castle there. I wondered how it survived the "bucket of instant sunshine" that the Americans dropped in '45. Turned out it didn't, and the one that I visited was rebuilt in 1953.
The castle was to be dismantled and used to create defenses for the invasion. By jr high school students. The rebuilt castle is made of concrete and steel.
Initially, I was wary when I saw the length of this episode. It went by fast. Spartacus is such a good presenter that he can pick anything interesting and riveting. One of the things I love about this channel. An excellent job for such a serious subject. Like you say: Never forget. ‘Nuff said. Excelsior.
My grandfather was some of the first Naval personnel to enter the City. He refused to tell any of his daughters or Granddaughters of the experiences. I received all the black and white picture he took after his death in 2006.
Even on August 14 the Japanese government was deadlocked on accepting the Potsdam Declaration because Anami, Uemezu and the Navy Minister wanted to hold out not just for the emperor but also for 3 conditions that were absolutely anathema to the western allies - self disarmament, self return and Japanese only trial of war criminals
The effects of fallout were widespread. Following the test, the Eastman Kodak Co. (Rochester, NY) received reports of defects in their photographic emulsions. This was caused by fallout settling into the packaging materials and exposing the emulsion.
and they notified the US government because one of their engineers worked at the Manhattan project. The US government would tell them when a test was going to occur and Kodak would pause production or report where defects were detected in the country to help the government track fallout. This was all done in secrecy.
I remember learning about that as a case study when I was training as a Root Cause Investigator. They spent a lot of time coming to the wrong conclusions.
I have to give immense credit to the Time Ghost team the past few months. So often the time between Berlin and Okinawa is skipped over, but all of the series have shown the fascinating, horrifying details that lead to today. Japan's leaders failure to appreciate the urgency situation combined with the ever growing callusness of the US towards civilian casualties give the events a horrible inevitably.
It’s interesting really how the U.S. swung around so hard from strategic bombing aiming at factories to just pure and utter terror bombing in 1945. For the bombing of Japan the racist Curtis LeMay taking over (he also ran later in a pro segregationist platform as a politician…) makes the change but even in Germany the U.S. flew a lot of devastating raids solely aimed at killing civilians as late as late April 1945 when the British already toned down their bombings.
History revisionist always like to skip over a few details: Japanese diplomats sold their integrality down the river long ago: how can you trust negotiations with the same diplomats who time after time used peace negotiations as stall tactics to carry out suprise attacks. At the time of the bombings the Japanese Empire who still had the loyalty and support of the Japanese people were killing more innocent civilians and prisoners a week than the civilian losses at Nagasaki. AFTER TWO atomic bombings a large part of the leadership STILL did not want surrender and almost executed a successful coup.
➡➡ The Japanese view of World War II is one that emphasizes their position as victims, as exemplified by the dropping of the atomic bombs. 😱😱Every year around on 6th/9th August in Japan , only the fact that countless Japanese people were killed is emphasized. 😱😱Meanwhile, the fact that Japan was an aggressor nation and killed countless people in the Asia-Pacific region is largely ignored. 😱😱Many Japanese believe that Japan's atrocities are absolved by the dropping of the two atomic bombs by the United States. 😱😱
@@williamcabrol1222 I guess i'm just too jaded these days. Maybe i'm just too much of a believer that there is no such thing as innocent nor innocence in a total war. You pay your taxes, you pay your soldiers. You support someone who pays taxes, then... You can see where this leads. The only way to stop that thread is to stop war, something I would eagerly pursue if only I believed our species was capable of it.
@@DeridusNo innocence? That’s psychotic. So the school children weren’t innocent? See? I’m already slipping on that slope you’ve created. Simply paying your taxes makes you guilty? It was IMPERIAL Japan. They didn’t get to decide who to support. Still don’t really considering Japan is a one party state. You also say humans are incapable of stopping war while expounding your own warmongering mentality. No doubt built up over years, possibly decades of internalizing military propaganda. Like come on man. 🤦♂️
I presume that that bomber also participated in "normal" bombing raids over Japan, and that there were many other planes that were given similar names. Giving names to inanimate objects is a very normal human activity, and giving ironic or sarcastic ones is a way to relieve stress. I wonder if there is a record of the various names assigned to planes, ships, tanks, etc. by the various armies in this war.
@@edwardblair4096 If it was part of the 509th, those planes were set apart from the rest of the bomber crews, I think. They were supposed to focus on dropping the A-bomb, rather than doing regular runs
@@eldorados_lost_searcherThe 509th dropped “pumpkins” over Japan during the routine fire bombing raids. These were orange painted test articles for the “Fat Man” bomb that were filled with ten tons of high explosive and impact fused. Dozens of the “pumpkins” were dropped over Japan.
@@eldorados_lost_searcher The planes of the 509th were specially modified for the A-bomb mission, but they were taken from normal usage (planes, particularly new designs like the B-29, being rather expensive) and slated to go back to normal usage after the atomic program was through with them. Tibbets named the Enola Gay only the day before it delivered Little Boy. The plane's original commander was reported by some to be miffed by this since he apparently thought the naming thing was tacky.
Probably is and will continue to be the most second guessed decision ever taken. Put yourself in Truman's Position. Your advisors tell you the Horrific cost of taking Io Jima and Okinawa will be far exceeded by the invasion on Japan. Both in American casualties. And Horrendous civilian casualties. His advisors unanimously advised the bomb be used. How could he have justified to the American families of those servicemen who would loose their lives. A decision not to use the bomb. The Fire Bombing Killed more people. Even After both bombs had been dropped the Japanese cabinet was split. After. The Emperor cast the deciding vote. There was an attempted coup. To prevent the Emperor from surrendering. There was a delay after the two bombs dropped. The result. There was another firebombing raid after the bombs had dropped. The Americans were getting a 3rd and 4th bomb ready. Fortunately for the Japanese people. The Bomb was enough to get the Emperor to finally make a choice to choose surender and peace. Prior to this the Japanese had always planned to negotiate a peace settlement. To their advantage. The Japanese Strategy prior to the Bomb's. After the we win the decisive battle. After the Japanese can no longer hope to win a decisive battle. The Japanese resistance will cause such terrible casualties the Americans can not sustain we will negotiate a peace. The Emperor only voiced minor reprimands to the Military as a result of the fire bombings and horrendous civilian casualties. Potsdam Declaration was ignored by the Japanese Government and Emperor. The Emperor did agree with attempts to start peace negotiations. Not Surrender. Ironically. The decisions by the Japanese government to cause the highest possible casualties and accept the extreme Japanese military and civilian casualties lead directly to Trumans Decision to use the bombs. I am sure. Truman was troubled by this decision for the rest of his life. I don't think he had a choice. He was in the position and given the information and expert advice had to authorise its use. I have been to Japan. The horror of the bomb. Changed Japan. Today. Japan is one of the most peaceful countries in the world. Unlike Germany. Japan has never acknowledged the full horror Japan inflicted on its neighbours.
I was fortunate enough to visit Nagasaki in 1999 while in the Navy. We were the first US warship to port there in many years. The museum near ground zero is a humbling experience to say the least. Whether the bombs ended the war sooner and with less loss of allied life or not, the level of destruction is unfathomable until you see it personally. It will always be once removed from anyone who hasn't seen it, even the aftermath. It is a rough realization that while the governments and militaries were among some of the worst humans to walk the Earth, innocent lives will always be the price paid. Never Forget is as close as we can come to honoring their memory and spread the knowledge that differences we tend to see as unsurmountable, are so easily tipped toward this end.
Yeah no matter if it ended the war or not - the thought that any human would think he knows well enough to decide to kill ten thousand of people with a single bomb for some greater goal is just horrifying… We all make mistakes, we all miscalculate and yet someone felt confident enough or didn’t care at all about human lives anymore to decide to drop these… It’s also why in the U.S. people cannot entertain the possibility that the Soviets entering the war could have played a bigger role in Japan’s surrender (we will btw never know since Hirohito never said what in the end moved him in the cabinet discussion) - if that would be the case the U.S. committed one of the most horrific war crimes ever for no reason… (apparently it ending the war makes the war crime acceptable…)
@@bingobongo1615 How many Japanese lives would have been lost if the bombs were not available and invasion was the only option? How long would the fighting in Manchuria and other places the Japanese Army was engaged in have continued? How many Ally lives along with other innocents would have perished, in not let's forget, a war Japan brought to the world and didn't want to end? People who talk about how horrible the bombs were never take into account how much more horrible it would have gone without them.
@@jamie49868..The Firebombings were doing way more death tolls than the Atomic bombs, and it would have gone on had the war continued with no Nukes available.
@@rbgerald2469 Darn tooting. The only reason Hiroshima, Nagasaki, and a couple others were spared the firebombings was because the bomb was in the works. They also fail to take into account the shortages of food, medical, sanitation, you name it, that would have taken an enormous number of Japanese lives over the months it would have taken to prepare for invasion. And the firebombing would not have stopped. Just the Japanese lives those bombs saved is probably over 10,000,000, maybe even 20M.
During my military service I had to go through a course called " radio / bio / chemical", you know learning how to put on a gas mask ect When the " radio" part came one asks the drill Sargent what comes after such an attack The drill Sargent replied " those who get evaporated in the initial attack, will be the lucky ones" .....
When I went through in 2001 it was called NBC (Nuclear, Biological, Chemical). I remember the instructors doing the react to a nuclear blast drill, mask doning, the best shelters to mitigate blast effects, and the best body positions to be in if sheltering in a foxhole. Now it's called CBRN (Chemical, Biological, Radiological, Nuclear), and all it really does is teach personnel how to properly don their masks and MOPP suits with the occasional training on MOPP exchange and decontamination of personnel and equipment.
@@Pavlos_Charalambous greetings from the US. What is your native language? Sounds like you’ve done a version of this training for another country, correct?
@@bramstedt8997 it's Greek, in Greece every male between 18 to 20 depending on recruitment needs has to serve in the armed forces for about least a year Usually you get about a month of basic training and then send to a unit were you continue in more advanced training depending on speciality, rank ect The ΡΒΧΠ training is part of typical exercises although it feels more like a relic of cold war to be honest I mean some of the equipment is actually cold war east German surplus
Thank you Spatacus, Indy, and the whole team for covering this war without glossing over the most disturbing parts, regardless of the offending side. You have cast a light on the true horrors that lie down the destrucitve path that is humanity's tendency towards tribalism, whether that be along ethnic, religious, or political lines. The irony of watching this episode while I have the Olympics (tribalism at its best and healthiest IMO) is not lost on me either.
Of other destruction, Tetsuyo "Ted" Fujita, the great tornado researcher, was in the outskirts of Hiroshima when it was bombed and fled to Nagasaki for safety afterward, where once again he was distant enough to survive. Dr Fujita's research has saved countless lives by advancing our understanding of tornadoes, allowing better warnings to be issued.
I think you're confusing two separate men. Fujita was in Kokura (the original target of Fat Man) when the two bombs went off. His life was saved by the weather and he would spend the rest of his life studying it.
I've mentioned this before in other comments, but want to do it again here. The War against humanity series may be the most important content on RUclips. You've done a fantastic job with all the research for this series. A lot of it is tough to watch and listen to, but oh so important. With all the atrocities during this war, you would hope and think that humanity learned something. We may have, but people forget, and sometimes I feel that civilization is very fragile. Thanks again for a great series, which I assume is almost finished.
What grates on my nerves is Japan basically saying "Look at the horrible things done to our people during the war!" while ignoring and refusing to talk about the horrors THEIR military inflicted on others. They have no right to whine about Hiroshima and Nagasaki and fire bombings when they don't want to even acknowledge the mistreatment of civilian prisoners/POWs; Comfort Women; the Rape of Nanking; Unit 731; the tens of millions of Chinese, Filipino, Indonesian, Korean, Malaysian, and Southeast Asians they brutalized and murdered in their conquests. Christopher Hitchens described it best "For some reason we were never quite able to fathom, the United States suddenly started dropping atomic bombs on us."
While this is 100% true and I completely agree that Japan's refusal to acknowledge and deal with their atrocities is, well, disgusting honestly. If we're talking about the original point about humanity not learning from this, I would say part of that problem is also that atrocities committed by the Allies have been hugely glossed over and ignored. Apart from the Soviets, you basically never in mainstream history hear about anything bad done by the Allies. And if you do mention it, are immediately met by whatsboutism showing how the Nazis and Japan were so much worse. Which again, don't disagree. But if we're talking about humanity as a whole learning from history, then it is really important for people to learn about how every human is corruptible and capable of evil acts when put in dehumanising and terrible situations. Otherwise it's far too easy, as is what's happened really with WW2 discourse, to turn it into a simplistic case of Good v Evil with no room for nuance and reflection on how we got to such tragedies to avoid them in the future.
@@Southpaw535 I don't know if what you say is so true, It seems to me, that now days, all one hears is how terrible our generals were and all of the terrible things the Allies did to the poor Germans and Japs. I've been around a while, and the aggressors almost always turn out to be the victims and the liberators become the criminals. So many people don't understand hindsight. And one must consider the pressures placed upon the allied leaders to end the wars as quickly as possible. Mistakes were made and crimes were committed no doubt, but what would we have done if put in those old heroes shoes? Probably shit our own pants at the very least.
The US already had their own decrypt of the Japanese "Attempt" sent to the Soviets. The first part of the proposal was a sincere attempt at having the USSR broker a peace deal (but Japan snubbed proposals from Switzerland, the Vatican and Sweden). However the Hawks insisted two other proposals: a trade deal with the USSR (with the Soviets providing shipping), and a military alliance. Such a proposal confused Soviets, the US, and the Japanese ambassador to the Soviet Union alike.
I believe this shows they were afraid of the "barbarian" Americans, and thought only the Soviet Union could protect them. That's why they ignored peace efforts from Switzerland and the Vatican.
I'm surprised at how the emperor, Hirohito, is given a pass in all this. He knew full well how much the Japanese people suffered, and he approved all major military decisions--indeed, they required his approval to be implemented. He could have forced a surrender well before August, but clung onto the myth of divine resistance. He deserved to be tried as a war criminal. I think it telling that when we conducted an aerial demonstration of B-29s just after the surrender, Hirohito's wife, the empress, wrote that she couldn't help thinking that Japan should have paid more attention to the "scientific side" of war. Not much remorse there.
"Dropped from Enola, a city erased Threat of the future displayed, A power unheard of a power unseen, Flash out of nowhere, the sky is burning!" -Sabaton, Nuclear Attack The only two times so far in History that an Atomic Weapon was deployed in a war. And we should count ourselves lucky for that.
Iron maiden had put it more poetically "Out of the the universe A strange love is born Unholy union Trinity reformed Yellow sun, its evil twin In the black the winds deliver him We will sleep to souls within Atom seed to nuclear dust is riven" ( brighter than a thousand suns)
Oppenheimer: "Albert. When I came to you with those calculations. We thought it might start a chain reaction that would destroy the entire world". Einstein: "I remember it well. What of it?" Oppenheimer: "I believe we did".
I am moved and troubled... Your documentary is very informative and eye-opening. I salute the excellence of your work. Never forget? No, always remember and remind others, especially the younger generation, of what Humans are capable of, and why sane humans must always act to spare the Planet annihilation. Cheers, Sparty, and team!
Thank you for this outstanding episode. You make an excellent point regarding the ‘saving face’ for the IJA. Incredible summary of a terrible period in world history. Never Forget.
Why would the Ultra-nationalist Japanese gov't have responded to a new Soviet invasion threat any differently than they had already committed to in order to resist the Allied invasion threat? They'd just have adjusted to a two front defense, and waited for the hammer to drop.. In the mean time, more and more millions of Japanese would have died of starvation and/or epidemic disease. So it does seem the atomic weapons, whether via intimidation or offering the hardliners a face saving exit strategy, did something to catalyze an early end of the war. Thus, in some sense, the horrible price paid by the victims of the atomic bombings brought the lives of an estimated ~10,000,000 of their fellow countrymen.
Let us not forget that this was the direct result of the expansionist and militarist desires of the Japanese Empire spanning over half a century. At that point, Japan had invaded multiple countries throughout East and Southeast Asia, robbed them of their resources, and deliberately enslaved and massacred their local residents. While ordinary Japanese citizens on that day finally found out what "hell" could feel like on the days of the bombings, many elsewhere within the so-called "Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere" had literally lived in hell under Japanese occupation since the end of the previous century, they had to get by under what would be considered unimaginably harsh and hopeless conditions, underneath the endless shadows casted by the black sun that was the Japanese Empire, a black sun that sucked everything dry so the Empire could envelop even more poor souls and swallow even more innocent lives elsewhere.
‘Japan was “close to surrendering”. You might as well say they were close to surrendering through all of 1945. Their government remained stalemated even after the first bomb - I say you are wrong that they would have surrendered in anything like a timely manner if the bomb hadn’t been dropped
The parents of my late brother-in-law, James "JJ" Kenji Jenkins, bookmarks the horrors of this war. His father (David) was from the Midwest and loathed it; he was able to get himself a position in the US Navy in late 1940 and was shipped off for basic training in March of 1941. Through one thing and another he was delayed actually being assigned to a vessel, but was finally put on a supply ship out of San Diego and shipped out on November 30th, 1941. His ship was suddenly redirected to Pearl Harbor. He arrived two days after the attack; his first official task in the Navy was spending two weeks pulling bodies and debris out of the harbor. He took to drinking heavily. JJ's mother (Kumiko) was a native of Nagasaki. During the war she worked as a secretary & courier for a Japanese firm (she never said specifically which one). One day in late July 1945 her boss told her she needed to make certain that a contract got signed. So, this being the war and she being a woman, she got on her bicycle and pedaled off towards Hiroshima. By the time she arrived, there was a barricade in place and she was told to turn around. By the time she got back to Nagasaki she was med with another barricade, but since she was a resident she was immediately put to work cleaning up the town. For the next 2-3 months she aided in the recovery of bodies and removal of rubble. She took to drinking heavily. David was part of the occupation force after the war. He met Kumiko in a bar and they were soon dating. They got permission to marry and she returned with him to Alameda, CA, about eight months later. JJ remembers them constantly yelling at each other, both smoking like chimneys, and half their time utterly drunk. It was not what you would call a successful marriage, but Kumiko refused to divorce her husband. David would sometimes go down to the Alameda Naval Base in his old (by now ill-fitting and much in need or repair) WWII uniform and try to cage drinks from folks in return for war stories. The MPs got used to pouring him into a taxi and sending him home. His father died of liver issues when JJ was still a teen. His mother died of lung cancer when JJ was in his 40s. So here was the cost of war on two generations. JJ never went to war, but had to fight against the tendency towards alcohol all his life. He never knew what a happy home was really like until much later in life. He was teased for not looking quite American enough by other kids. And home was a place of drinking, smoking, and yelling. Here were two people who were living with deep pain and trauma who only compounded each other's bad tendencies and spread it on to their child. The cost of war is felt down the generations.
Here’s a deeply depressing thought. It is my considered opinion that, as of now, August 2024, the atomic bomb has been a net good for humanity, in that it has saved many, many times more lives than it has taken. Let me explain. First: without the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, I believe that the United States, Britain, and the Soviet Union would have invaded Japan. Operation Downfall has been discussed at some length on the main channel. Suffice it to say that American estimates suggested a million dead Americans, four to five times as many wounded, and up to ten times that many dead Japanese. That is only in the American sectors: it takes no account of Soviet or British losses. Compared to the death toll of a full-scale invasion, Hiroshima and Nagasaki were at least a full order of magnitude less destructive. Second: without the threat of nuclear annihilation, it is my firm conviction that the Warsaw Pact and NATO would have gone to war before the Soviet Union’s collapse. We came dangerously close more than once. Korea, Vietnam, Cuba; these, and many more proxy conflicts, could easily have spiraled out of control without the not-entirely-metaphorical gun to the head that nuclear war represented. Had NATO and the Warsaw Pack fought, World War Three would have been to World War Two what World War Two was to World War One: an order of magnitude more destructive, more devastating, more global. Tens of millions dead, at least, and hundreds of cities razed to the ground. The sacrifice of two medium-sized cities to spare hundreds, sickening as it is, is the only logical choice. It’s quite the condemnation of humanity, is it not: that our current timeline, dark as it is, is likely _better_ than what might have been.
The Japanese peace faction wasn't about to surrender unconditionally. They were trying to negotiate a surrender. That didn't just mean keeping the Emperor, they wanted to keep territory, not demilitarize, not be occupied, and not have war crimes trials performed. Different members had conflicting ideas over what they wanted. They wanted to surrender, but still didn't want to unconditionally.
Well beyond profoundly touched by this series. It is sad that this war against Humanity still rages on. Why hate manifests itself is beyond me, when will we as living beings ever learn, or even care to??? Brilliant work , tragically brilliant.....
The Imperial Cabinet was equally divided between civilian and military members but the military leaders held control. They had to be forced into surrender by the civilians and as the Kyujo incident shows, the peace party’s victory was tenuous.
Spartacus, this was a brilliant presentation. Congratulations and many thanks. My father after completing an enlistment in the U.S. Navy was discharged after VE day. He immediately enlisted in the U.S.Marine Corps. He anticipated the final push in the Pacific theater and the eventual invasion of Japan. When I was a young boy in the early 1960's through television and movies I had become aware of WWII. I asked my Dad many questions about the war. He never had much to say but he did state that given the way the Marines approached war, he doubted that he would have survived the invasion of Japan. He thought that the bomb saved his and many others lives. Ironically, after the war he found himself stationed in China where the Marines fought some little known but intense battles against the PLA. We are quite clever and inventive when it comes to slaughtering one another. This is the "original sin" we all have to overcome.
Perhaps if Japan's leaders - military AND civilian - were not hellbent on fighting to the last man, woman and child, and accepted the terms of unconditional surrender, they would not have had to suffer this further example of "the war against humanity." Unfortunately, the Japanese proved - on Iwo Jima, Okinawa, etc. - that "surrender" was not a word in their national lexicon. Moreover, and before I allow for any national "guilt trip" to be laid at my country's feet, I remind the world of the unspeakable atrocities Japan's military butchers committed against Allied POW's, Chinese, Korean and Filipino civilians - and other peoples of whom Japan's military establishment deemed "sub-human." Further, I will remind the world that, so brutal were their "war crimes against humanity," it is said even the Germans were appalled at Japan's actions.
I don't think it's fair to ascribe blame on any one person except the president, in this case. That would be like blaming every single factory worker who produced bombs or bullets for death.
@@cwovictor3281 It's not fair to blame a President whose main motivation was to potentially save tens of thousands of lives of his citizens. If blame must be placed it belongs to all of us as we as a species cannot figure out how to live in peace- and nobody's really trying.
We wanted to pin a comment on the enormous impact of the atomic bombing, but RUclips keeps hiding our comment. We will continue in our fight to make bring you the history that matters despite the censorship of our work. Never Forget.
Never forget! Love from Canada 🇨🇦 please make a video on Canada’s❤ roel in the war.
RUclips comment hiding thing starts to become very annoying
@@Pavlos_Charalambous It happens every 4 years
Thanks for the historical revionism Spartacus:
1) Despite the fact part of the government was willing to surrender and was trying to do so AFTER Hiroshima/Nagasaki/Soviet invasion, there was a coup attempt to prevent the surrender from happening. Spartacus makes no mention of this.
2) Why do all these ''the nuke was just to scare the Soviets'' or ''the Japs were already defeated'' historical revionists ALWAYS avoid talking about the coup?
This is just as bad as how many WWII tragedies that left scars in nations that weren't even mentioned in the WWII show (for example: the Dutch alone never got a single mention on this channel about the February 41/Sep 43 strikes, mad tuesday or the May 1940 battles, and the famine which killed 20.000 civilians only a 1-minute mention ''on the side'')
@@evocorporation6537 On 26 July, 1945 (Berlin time), the Potsdam Conference issued a declaration on the terms for the surrender of Japan. When the Potsdam Declaration was received in Japan over shortwave, the Minister for Foreign Affairs Shigenori Tōgō brought a copy to the Emperor of Japan, Hirohito. After going over the declaration point by point, the emperor asked Tōgō if those terms "were the most reasonable to be expected in the circumstances". Tōgō said that they were. The emperor said, "I agree. In principle they are acceptable." In late July, however, the other ministers were not ready to accept the declaration.
Direct from Wikipedia. They planned to accept the term even before any nukes fell and Soviets came. If i can counter your whole idea just by copy pasting Wiki article you might want to reconsider your position.
i said it before and will say it again. this group of people who make this channel possible should earn some kind a world award. making history so detailed but still captivating is a once in a lifetime feat. i salute you
@@franskamstra2728 Pulitzer or Nobel-tier, that's for sure.
Instead they get treated like shit by the likes of RUclips and their questionable (at best) sponsors. RUclips should arguably be paying out of pocket for content like this.
Thank you very much for the comment.
How the US used the atomic bomb the 2 cities of Japan bombing
I visited the Hiroshima museum. Many people were openly weeping at the exhibits.
Eternal thanks to the TimeGhost team for your incredible work over these past few years. Episodes like this one should be mandatory viewing for all human beings. Incredibly informative and deeply touching.
Probably the same people who deny the massive Japanese war crimes in China and elsewhere that were so horrific even the Nazis were appalled.
Sobering and frightening, the tragic culmination of WW2 is here. Another excellent episode and well presented too. Thank you.
Words cannot describe this, I'm just left stunned, shocked and appalled.
I am genuinely curious as to why?
Same, only it's the Bataan Death March
@@Deridus The amount of destruction and loss of life in just two bombs.
It's the after effects as well
@@bloodrave9578 I guess that makes sense. Maybe I'm just desensitized to it at this point. Hiroshima and Nagasaki don't strike me as any different than Berlin, Dresden, Nurnburg, Tokyo, or Kagoshima, really. No one ever talks about the casualties who perished AFTER those raids, only the ones who died in them. To me, nukes are hardly more a step up from conventional bombs as machine guns are to bolt-actions.
As this war comes to an end, everyone involved in making this series should be recognized worldwide for their extreme and in many cases such as this one, very graphic detail, describing the horrors of such a war and in particular, the use of nuclear weapons. This series should be an award winning series and should be shown in schools everywhere.
Gripping delivery of terrible events!
Thank you, and indeed that end message is chillingly apt at this very point in human history.
I'm afraid we're bound to repeat, and surpass, the errors of the past...
My grandfather lied about his age and joined the army in late 1944 he trained to take part in operation Olympic instead he was a part of the first generation of American troops to occupy tokyo he has some pretty amazing photos of Mt Fuji from his time there. He never spoke much of his time in Japan but once he did mention he visited Hiroshima as part of a military escort. He never said much beyond that but he struggled with melanoma (skin cancer) in his later life and had splotchy skin as early as his 40s when I as a young boy asked him about he only ever told me that he got sunburned so bad and so often in the army that it gave him freckles. He was in the army for less than 2 years. As I've learned more about this was I always wondered if there was a connection.
I have been to Hiroshima this January. It's now a city of 2 million people. To visit the city center, where it exploded, was an incredible experience. Somehow they rebuilt the city turned it back into a home.
Still, I am a strong advisory of "si vic pacem, para bellum" (if you desire peace, prepare for war).
I strongly believe that, if both the US and the USSR didn't have the fission and later fusion bombs, that a third world war would have happened sometime in the late 50s/early 60s. Using violence and military force is comparatively easy: you don't need to listen to your adversary. You don't need to think too hard. You don't need to be objectively right. As long as you have the bigger stick than your adversary, you can impose your will. However, if your adversary can hit you just as hard as you can hit your adversary, then the option of violence becomes a much more troublesome one and you are actually forced to negotiate with words, instead of force.
Therefore, I am convinced that the existence of those bombs are one of the major reasons why there has not been a more destructive war since the Second World War 79 years ago.
Consequently, I imagine a world without nuclear weapons to be much more violent than what it is today, and even advocate for periodic public testing of nuclear weapons to remind all those in power (and those, who once will be in power) that the offensive usage of those weapons shall never be an option.
An interesting take, although I disagree with a lot of it. The biggest question I have is where would we make nuclear tests, since one of the reasons the detonations have stopped it’s due to public outcry to it, as well as the environmental damage
When the leaders of such countries are within range of the enemy's fire, I believe they do have a tendency to not start something.
@@barleyeducated8714 To the point!
The problem is that they DON'T force you to negotiate with words. They just make the consequences of using force much, much higher. You can still be willing, and even eager, to accept those consequences. There are people who had nearly enough authority to launch nukes who were willing to do it, and almost did. The counter-pressure from people who were not willing to accept those consequences was there at those times, but it is NOT a guarantee that it will be there next time, or the time after that, or the time after that.
What you said is correct inasmuch as that it makes the bar for major powers being willing to war with each other higher than it would otherwise be. But it may ultimately be a decision between a world which is periodically hellishly violent, and a world which no longer exists at all.
"Warned but did not heed." To quote Sabaton.
Oppenheimer has nothing to be guilty about. The atom was going to be split. It was only a matter of who splits the atom first.
That's how FDR was convinced by Einstein and other scientists to start developping it. If it's an inevitability given the scientific knowledge, better be the first to have it, lest others have a monopoly on it for some time.
He still felt empathy
The part of the biopic that I liked so much was the animating spirit of the scientists of the Manhattan Project early-on: They were absolutely driven by the desire to get the bomb built before the *Nazis* much more so than their (at the time) ally, the USSR.
If the project had always been aimed at either just building the Bomb, or initially aimed at the eventual enemy of the Soviet Union; I have a very strong belief that the scientific minds involved would not have been as driven and animated as they were in real life when confronted by the specter of a 'nazified' Europe. While it's easy to paint those academics as naïve dreamers in retrospect, you'd be hard pressed to find another collection of professors and engineers similarly convinced they're saving the world one Bomb design at a time.
You're emotionally an infant.
Thats a moronic argument. In the same level of “I will do it first because the other guy will do it anyway.” Until humanity stops that mentality we will continue falling for this mistake over and over
I understand that this is a fraught subject, and I believe you did handle it fairly well. But there are a couple things I take issue with.
For one thing, there is a false dichotomy between the "war hawk and peace dove" factions. From the very beginning Japan sought to defeat the United States tactically and force a negotiated treaty. There was no way they could have landed on he west coast, no realistic chance of a Man in the High Castle scenario.
And even after the war turned decisively against Japan, as your own weekly episodes show, the Japanese leadership threw countless men into the fray to wear the Allies down. It was always a debate between those willing to give up more for peace and those who wanted to grind down the Americans to force a negotiated armistice which would let them keep much of their military and leadership intact. To the very end the cabinet was split.
And secondly, I think skipping over the "Kyuju Incident", the attempted coup d'etat by elements of the Japanese military, is leaving out the important part of this picture that the high command was not in as tight control of the military as is shown. That indeed there was a fear that even if the government surrendered it would simply be overthrown by lower ranking officers, which was pretty much borne out when they tried just that after the Atomic bombings and Soviet invasion.
crazy how we're only 78 years later.
"how could such a cruel thing happen?"... Nanking on line 1
Bataan on Line 2.
@@jliller Burma Railroad on 3....
From Nanking to Nagasaki, it’s truly horrifying what horrors we are able to cause on others
Terrifying episode. We should all be reminded every day of the destruction waiting to happen. Its only until we rid ourselves of these weapons, and learn to live with each other in peace will the future of mankind be assured. Thank you for the content. Thank for reminding me what war really means.
I very much appreciate your summation of global nuclear weapons statistics without separating the tallies by various nations. Only the whole and combined "we". I believe the only way forward in taking responsibility for the state of humanity is by adopting that worldview. There is no "them", there is only "we". The heroes, the victims and the worst war criminals all belong to the same family. If the Hitlers and Stalins are ones of us, how do we take responsibility for ourselves?
I don't think Japan was that close to surrender as being indicated. Its important to remember that there was an attempted coup after they formally surrounded.
Operatives in the imperial Cabinet had to engage in some significant work to stampede the dedicated war warty into accepting surrender. This was after Nagasaki and the USSR declaration so the argument that the people in control in Japan wanted surrender is suspect.
And when thinking about it *hindsight* is a factor to consider first
Yeah, there's now way the Americans wouldn't have tried to keep it a secret if they didn't have to use it.
I believe someone actually had to hide the recording of the emperor’s speech to the nation to prevent the army hotheads from destroying it.
I do think they were, they were just in denial about it, the horrors of patriotism make people delusional and irrational
Several years before, the Japanese leadership had decided, *against expert advice,* to assemble the most powerful attack fleet in history and take it to Hawaii.
For years, at every subsequent setback, with every increasingly clear indication of looming defeat their choice was to continue.
Being ready to surrender is all very well, but when all your previous actions have inclined your foe to assume the contrary, getting round to it sooner might have been a good idea.
I always enjoy the content of this Channel. But my compliments on this particular Episode. My father went through Hiroshima around Feb of '46. His observation was that he hopped the world would never again see anything like what he saw. He would have enjoyed this presentation.
My own history teacher said that the bombing was, of course, partly to speed up the war, but also to force the japanese to surrender before the soviets could get any major gains. I'm not sure what others think, but that's what she said.
I do agree that truman really ought to have waited for the japanese reaction to manchuria.
Thanks for the serious, honest presentation of the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. I don't know if you are going to discuss the morality of these events in a separate episode, but I thought this video did well to summarize the morality of the bombings.
In an entirely different sense, this is a very sad WAH episode, and in yet another way we can remember: Never Forget.
Its amazing how atomic power can achieve such a duality. It can either provide energy for cities for years and years or unleash energy on a city for just a minute.
This episode is once again not really talking so much about something I don't know the overall details of but the detailed descriptions do really show the true grotesque details of even the smallest nuclear weapons.
And as irony has it my friends and I started playing the game ICBM recently...
You control continent sized nations and slowly build up your arsenal on nuclear weapons as you also research more and more means to help you "win" the oncomming conflict.
We played a few rounds before and when you don't make the connection to the real world one might believe that nuclear weapons aren't that bad as "only" 10s of millions die on each continent directly after the bombs hit.
But yesterday was different, we played the same round for around 2 real hours before we decided to all launch our arsenals to bring it to an end.
An hour before that happened I said something along the lines of "Guys, I don't want to start it. Our militaries might be fighting but I don't want to doom all those people."
Nuclear submarines with missiles where stationed around my enemies, hundreds of planes where ready to deliver everything from small tactical and 50 megaton bombs to every single military unit and civilian population centre on the map.
And it only got worse by the minute.
Finally, around the two hour mark we fired our weapons of mass genocide.
Planes and missiles where everywhere and I think that no city was unscaved.
A city in china was hit just once and suffered "only" around 300.000 dead.
Other cities, in Indonesia for example, where hit for a grand total of 113 times and less than 1000 people came out alive from a city that once inhabited millions.
The game wasn't designed to be played as long as me and my friends did but we maybe only reached together a tenth of the amount of nuclear weapons that the United States currently has.
As I began thinking about what has happened in Hiroshima, Nagasaki, our game and how many nuclear weapons there are in real life I was in a temporary state of shock and bitter sadness.
Nuclear weapons are probably humanities most horrible invention, and if the brute of nuclear war somehow breaks loose then I have no doubt in that only a very small amount of people will survive and that there will be billions of people who will suffer an unnecessary terrific death.
Surrender meant very different things between the US and Japan.
Japan viewed surrender as more like an armistice were they would retain conquered lands with no occupation. But to say “Japan believes….” Elides a great deal because of the the high command was riven with respect to what surrender meant and so could mean many things to many people.
Unconditional surrender has a very specific legal meaning, one of the points that it allows the conqueror to occupy and completely remake all civilian and legal systems of the conquered nation.
The Japanese had no intention of unconditional surrender or at least, the “peace wing” may have know but would refuse to clarify to the hawks because of risk of assassination, and the only thing they obsessed over about the emperor because it was they all could agree on and distracted the hawks from other, less palatable aspects of the proposed surrender in the Potsdam dec.
The fact that in the emperors address there was no mention of the Russians joining the war but he talks about the bomb should give some hint as to the calculation that went into the final decision.
In the conversation about the utilization of the bomb, I’ve noticed that the number of Chinese that were dying on a daily basis are rarely mentioned.
While commentators now, hem and haw about a day here or there, 10s of thousands of Chinese, on a daily basis, soldier and civilians were dying at the hands of the Japanese.
I should also note that I’ve known Japanese civilians who greatly benefited from the occupation of both Korea and China.
Mr. Olsson makes two references to the "USBSS." I think he is referring to the postwar 'U.S. Strategic Bombing Survey,' which was a comprehensive study of the effects of Allied bombing in WW2. As I recall, the efficacy was lower, because anti-aircraft accuracy at low altitudes drove aircraft to use higher, and less precise, altitudes.
I think it's an excellent decision to "unveil" this news with a video highlighting the effects on humanity, rather than as the weekly war update.
Thus the war reached it'd in its final act
Sparty, you failed to make clear that the Military leaders of Japan had placed the Emperor under house arrest and prevented him from communicating to anyone else because they knew he wanted to end the war and would do that if allowed. It is entirely, completely, and solely the Japanese Military 'war-hawks' who are to blame for the war reaching this point. This needs to be emphasized so people can learn to never allow that kind of people to have power ever again even if you agree with their cause. Never forget that we get what we allow to happen.
Deterrence is one error before offensive war. Noo weapon designed has not been used. Hydrogen bombs remain unused yet.
Exceptional video. Thank you.
Today, August 6, is my Birthday. I was Born in 1997.
Never forget.
As always, your epilogue, Sparty, is just… so strong! Thank you
Everyone gangsta till Spartacus shows up.
Looking at it from a purely Strategic point of view, the atomic bombs actually maintained peace on a global scale. I know people will argue about it, but east verses west, Free verses Totalitarian would have been a hot war, killing many millions more that WWII did. Is it a concern? yes. Is it something to lose sleep over? no.
I had to stop at 19:45. I had the same problem with the description of the carnage in "The Making of the Atomic Bomb", by Richard Rhodes.
My father was stationed on Tinian between January and October 1945 as part of a 6-man Signal Service unit that received a Meritorious Service commendation but the application for that award is silent on the reason why. Given my father's - at the time - future career which saw him travel the world, setting up US military surveillance systems, I have a feeling he knew a lot more than he said. He maintained that almost nobody on the island knew that anything was going on at the northern end of the island. Given the stories written about the press coverage, the Hollywood-style build-up - complete with kleig lights illuminating the Enola Gay at night, reporters asking questions, a flood of military higher-ups, etc - that is hard to believe. He never said a word but he kept a picture postcard of the Enola Gay taking off - he threw out his wedding album and honeymoon album and tossed all the family photographs that the kids didn't grab when we had the chance - but he kept every photograph he took on Tinian and every postcard souvenir he bought.
I can't comment on this w/o becoming angry about the Jews who were slaughtered by the millions. How many lives would have to be sacrificed to stop the Axis powers? The fewer Allied deaths the better, whatever it took is what it took to end the killings.
How many civilians were killed by the Blitz? How many civilians were killed throughout Asia? The number must be astronomical in China alone, is a Chinaman less than a European? How about the Filipinos? Add in the number of Allied POWs slaughtered and again, as far as I'm concerned, whatever it took, it took. Never forget.
Those little girls unknowingly catching radioactive fallout on their tongues is horrifying.
Sparatcus: it was snowing
Me: oh, no...
Spartacus: girls were smearing snow on their faces and even putting it on thier tongues
Me: ... looks like I paid enough attention during civil defense course
That was horrible 😞
"...but this is not snow." sent chills down my spine.
In Hiroshima and Nagasaki many of the survivors of the initial blast would drink the black rain as they were parched and often suffering from burns.
@@AlexMax2742I get chills whenever I watch one of these.
Kokura was the second city on the list and was spared Fat Man's destruction as the weather plane reported cloudy conditions over the city. My then teenaged mother lived in Kokura and worked for a ball bearing plant. I exist...because of clouds.
Life is indeed ephemeral.
"Kokura's Luck" is coined from this event. It is defined as having escaped a great tragedy or misfortune without even knowing you were in peril in the first place. And it wasn't just clouds. Lingering smoke from a nearby bombing raid worsened visibility over Kokura. Also, an ingenious factory worker at one of the Kokura plants sensed that the area was about to be hit by some type of aerial attack, and introduced chemicals into his boilers or furnaces to produce thicker smoke to make using bomb sights difficult for the attacking Americans.
in Saturday's episode Indy said it was Niigata
Nagasaki was bombed as the Tertiary (not secondary) target because after multiple passes over the primary target Kokura the bomber “Bockscar”couldn’t see the target. “Bockscar”ran out of fuel at the end of the runway at Okinawa due to delays on route and a failed fuel pump.
Nagasaki was bombed because it was on the shortest path from Kokura to Okinawa and the bomb was not “impact safe” (it would detonate if dropped even if not armed).
Ted Fujita, one of the world's foremost meteorologists, was in Kokura at the time, as well. He is responsible for most of the research and knowledge we have on tornadoes and similar severe weather phenomena
My god. We’re here folks. We are at the home stretch. I knew we were going to reach this point eventually but now that we are here I can’t believe it.
Just one more weekly episode to wrap things up. What a journey for those of us who were here from the start!
@@macleuninbrother we have been here since 1914
@@mgway4661 that’s what I meant 🤝
@@macleuninonly to the unconditional surrender, the actual end of the war will be another 2 or 3 episodes
Now imagine living through a war for as long as we've been watching.
I got to talk to a vet who worked on B-29's on Tinian. When a mission was ordered each plane was checked out mechanically, then loaded with bombs and fueled. After that a sargeant with a pistol would guard the plane until the crew came to start the mission. One day he saw a captain guarding one plane with a tommy gun and he thought that was really strange. Turns out, it was the Enola Gay about to bomb Hiroshima.
Which when you think about it, still seems like horrifyingly light security considering
@@therideneverends1697 security draws attention, attention draws sabotage and attacks.
@@littlekong7685 very good point
Did he get the name of any of those Sargents? My grandfather was a marine sargent on Tinian.
@@littlekong7685in which case why guard it differently and draw attention? You cant have it both ways.
My father was all-in on science. Except for nuclear energy. I did not understand why. He didn't talk much about what he did in WWII. He was an army medic. After he died my mother told me that he was in the first team of medics who went into Nagasaki. That explained a lot of things. I remember family talking about building bomb shelters. I remember my father saying he would never build a fallout shelter; he would go out in the yard and get killed by the initial blast.
Well your father was a fool. Nuclear energy is still safe.
Well Nuclear Energy is not the same as nuclear weapons.
@@richards6431 In my father's mind it was.
@@richards6431 dude was probably also against planes because the bombs had been dropped from them
@@enoynaert I could see the misunderstanding that could arise. Our leaders need to do a better job of explaining the differences.
Thank you for not sugar coating the impact of this event.
If you're ever in Hiroshima, visit the museum. It's . . . heavy. It was weird the day we went, because there was a tour group of middle school kids, so the vibe of all these energetic kids was rather at odds with the content.
I agree. People love to make memes and laugh about it. But what the horrific effects show that we should never decide to use such awful weapons again.
Yeah you get a lot more from this than some Wikipedia article. I never realized it was this bad in Hiroshima. The article just doesn't really convey that.
How could someone sugar coat this?
He called war against humanity an event that saved and reiceves more gratitude from asians and japanese than any other saved ethnicity under threat and under the war reaper..
That's a lot of sour coating
Spartacus Olsen is a phenomenal narrator.
I hope he gets to cover a more cheerful subject soon.
He deserves it.
He has the absolute perfect voice for this
Unfortunately, it will be war crimes in Korea now...
Thanks for watching, never forget.
Sparty narrating the history of desserts, he could even end it with "Never fruitcake"
Spartacus on the history of money: Never forge it.
Spartacus on the lucky numbers in keno: Never 'four,' git!
Spartacus on the optimal position in a phalanx: Never fore! Get it?
And, of course, Spartacus on the value of passwords: Never forget!
It will be interesting when we get to the point in the Korean War where MacArthur and Truman are butting heads on the use of atomic weapons in that conflict. Another powerful episode, Sparty and much needed in this day and age. Sharing this far and wide.
Thanks for sharing this episode, never forget.
- Jake
@@WorldWarTwoHi!! I watched this episode, and I was a bit puzzled, as I was expecting you guys/ladies to take an explicit position either for or against the atomic bombings of Japan. Why did Sparty not say either "the bombings were necessary to win the war" or "the atomic bombings were unjustifiable and constituted genocide." I ask this because this has been debated by historians for decades. I would have thought you would seek to lay this to rest once and for all!!
Edit: I know this is a history channel and that you generally just report the facts, but certainly you must have an opinion on this question. Just wanted to ask.
"Albert, when I came to you with those calculations, we thought we might start a chain reaction that would destroy the entire world"
"I remember it well. What of it ?"
"I believe we did"
Then the guy got called a crybaby by Truman..
@@901Shermanhad Truman not have replaced FDR, and ran on his own without that, would he have won?
@@c1ph3rpunk Truman or FDR, the cat was in the bag. The Soviets had spies who sent blueprints to Moscow, in a few years they'd have had a bomb...
At least Truman had the foresight to use great restraint on the matter, such as denying MacArthur its use in Korea/Manchuria.
@@Duke_of_Lorraine Good point!
@@Duke_of_Lorraine What's often overlooked about Truman's response to the bomb, especially compared to his comments following the disastrous meeting with Oppenheimer, is that he was emotionally affected by it. Upon it's use on Hiroshima & Nagasaki, he was thrilled about its success and would publicly hail it as one of the greatest scientific achievements known to man; however, after the war ended and he was shown then-classified intel on the devastation the weapons caused he changed his tune. He then started referring to atomic weaponry as "the most terrible bomb in the history of the world" and began establishing fail-safes for their use.
I met an old Japanese man in The town I used to live in Corona California. He was sitting at the bus stop every single day by the library when I would pass by on the bus. So one day I decided to get off the bus and sit next to him. I got into a conversation with him and started learning about his life story. Turned out he was actually at Hiroshima and he had a bunch of bleaching on his skin from the radiation Burns. He was in a bunker at the time, not in the center of Hiroshima but on the outskirts being briefed on a Kamikaze flight that he was to embark on in the coming weeks with what was left of the Japanese Air Force. When the bomb dropped he was curious to see what had happened so he opened the door to the bunker after a period of time and that's when he suffered the radiation Burns as the mushroom cloud could still be seen in the sky. He was interesting, especially because he was explaining why Japan did what they did from his own personal family perspective. His dad was in commerce before the war and when The American government started the embargo and froze Japanese assets. His family lost most of their wealth. One of his older brothers died in China. Another one died in Burma and another one died in the Philippines. He was the youngest and the last to be enlisted. He never actually saw combat. He only ever trained briefly for his Kamikaze fight which never happened as the war ended soon after. But he felt very justified in the causes for the war, even if he acknowledged the terrible cost it had and the crimes that were committed. I never got his first name but he went by Mr. Tanaka. I thought he was a very interesting and kind man and I appreciated that he shared his story with me.
Paradoxically, he was one of those whose life was spared thanks to the bomb.
@@canman5060 Is it really? That's so funny. That was his name. At least as best as I can remember it. It was a decade ago.
@@jjeherrera In a way he was. He recognized that in our conversation. He had a morbid kind of gratitude and guilt over it.
Surprisingly, the Japanese had like 10k airplanes parked away and hidden ready for invasion. All to be kamikaze, of course. Just little actual combat aircraft, let alone formations and trained pilots.
The nuclear raids of Hiroshima and Nagasaki was Truman's attempt to warn Joseph Stalin of America is aware of the Soviet army 's further advancing into central Europe.
Arguably the most important single episode of the entire series.
I'm a US baby boomer and my parents had a copy of John Hersey's book Hiroshima, referenced in the video I was deeply moved by the book growing up. In the late 1960's while in the USMC I was in Japan and visited Hiroshima Peace Park. There is a diorama showing the effects of the bomb.
me too, me too, but in the USMC I just made it to Guam (but a Japanese WW2 soldier was hiding near my base at the time )
The question should be how many Japanese would have died if the bombs were not used? The continued bombing, the lack of food and medical, and an actual invasion probably would have resulted in 5,000,000 or even 10,000,000 Japanese lives being lost, maybe more.
That is not factoring the loss of Ally lives, in lest we forget, a war that Japan started and wouldn't stop.
For the people who talk about how horrible the bombs were, they always fail to mention how much more horrible the alternative would have been.
And to add on, had the invasion route been chosen, not only do you have the casualties from both sides, but you risk wiping out portions of future generations of Americans and Japanese if the casualty count was as bad, if not worse than expected.
Those against the bomb who had descendants fight in the Pacific or would've been eligible had we opted to invade fail to note that if their descendant died in the fighting, they don't exist.
@@finchborat People also forget that the Japanese were engaged in combat in Manchuria and other places with no intent to cease. The bomb ended those operations and also saved the lives of countless people in those areas as well.
To add to this, the reason why there were a lot of hiroshima victims was because the army prevented any further medical assistance as it would be used for the imminent allied landings. Even amidst the literal sun dropped on them they still wanted to fight thats how fanatical they are
It's very hard to listen to the accounts of the survivors of the bombing. Very, very hard. I've always been one who puts the blame of the atomic bombings on the Japanese Military Leadership themselves. I'm biased - my grandfather only lived because the atomic bombs were dropped when they were (he was a civilian prisoner in a Japanese camp in Malaysia. He was very close to death when the surrender was given). I only exist because the bombs were dropped.
But... I can't deny the horror of what the civilians of Nagasaki and Hiroshima went through. It's not in this video, but I read an account of a mother trying to help her children out of the rubble, but there was a fire coming and she wasn't fast enough. She saw her child burned to death in front of her. Her guilt, her anguish, made me stop reading that book for quite some time. I couldn't go on.
Every leader of every nuclear power should be forced to watch and read the accounts of survivors from these two cities. This cannot be allowed to occur again.
You are correct
Holy Cow! What just happened here in Hiroshima?? I'm going back home to Nagasaki
There's a story of a Japanese man who actually did that. He survived both nukes.
@@BubblewrapHighwayTsutomu Yamaguchi, died 2010 January. That man is hella tough, both unlucky and lucky.
@@johnlucas6683 Ah, just got to that part of the video.
@@BubblewrapHighway Yep, it's mentioned later on in the video at around 27:00 minutes, thank you for watching.
@@WorldWarTwo Thank you for writing, filming, editing, and uploading!
Not for the first time in this series has Sparty's War Against Humanity made me stop what I'm doing and made me stand and listen.
So powerful and sad...
Spartacus Olsen is a phenomenal narrator.
I hope he gets to cover a more cheerful subject soon.
He deserves it.
Thank you for watching, never forget.
I remember the comment section on the holocaust episode which mentionend that Mr Olson was crying after reporting it. In watching today I think this episode must have had the same effect. How can you research the events, watch those photos and footage, describe all these horrible effects and NOT be shattered?
At some moments I could bare continue to listen, let alone watch...
And his summary from 40: onwards sent chills down my spine.
Most important work. Kudos for your strength and dedication.
I went to Hiroshima once and was amazed that there was a castle there. I wondered how it survived the "bucket of instant sunshine" that the Americans dropped in '45. Turned out it didn't, and the one that I visited was rebuilt in 1953.
Japanese castles often get destroyed in earthquakes and fires and are rebuilt. There are few truly old buildings in Japan.
The castle was rebuilt
The castle was to be dismantled and used to create defenses for the invasion. By jr high school students.
The rebuilt castle is made of concrete and steel.
@@CarrotConsumer I think every castle or temple we visited was on at least the second rebuild.
Initially, I was wary when I saw the length of this episode. It went by fast. Spartacus is such a good presenter that he can pick anything interesting and riveting. One of the things I love about this channel. An excellent job for such a serious subject. Like you say: Never forget. ‘Nuff said. Excelsior.
Thank you for the lovely comment.
My grandfather was some of the first Naval personnel to enter the City.
He refused to tell any of his daughters or Granddaughters of the experiences. I received all the black and white picture he took after his death in 2006.
Will you upload them? No point those fading away
have you copyed and/or preserved them?
@@therideneverends1697 I have the copied and preserved.
Do you plan to share them? I’m guessing they are horrific :(
@@ShadyRonin mostly they are the rubble and destruction. Some of the shadows of the people burned into the granite.
Even on August 14 the Japanese government was deadlocked on accepting the Potsdam Declaration because Anami, Uemezu and the Navy Minister wanted to hold out not just for the emperor but also for 3 conditions that were absolutely anathema to the western allies - self disarmament, self return and Japanese only trial of war criminals
The effects of fallout were widespread. Following the test, the Eastman Kodak Co. (Rochester, NY) received reports of defects in their photographic emulsions. This was caused by fallout settling into the packaging materials and exposing the emulsion.
and they notified the US government because one of their engineers worked at the Manhattan project. The US government would tell them when a test was going to occur and Kodak would pause production or report where defects were detected in the country to help the government track fallout. This was all done in secrecy.
I remember learning about that as a case study when I was training as a Root Cause Investigator. They spent a lot of time coming to the wrong conclusions.
I have to give immense credit to the Time Ghost team the past few months. So often the time between Berlin and Okinawa is skipped over, but all of the series have shown the fascinating, horrifying details that lead to today. Japan's leaders failure to appreciate the urgency situation combined with the ever growing callusness of the US towards civilian casualties give the events a horrible inevitably.
It’s interesting really how the U.S. swung around so hard from strategic bombing aiming at factories to just pure and utter terror bombing in 1945.
For the bombing of Japan the racist Curtis LeMay taking over (he also ran later in a pro segregationist platform as a politician…) makes the change but even in Germany the U.S. flew a lot of devastating raids solely aimed at killing civilians as late as late April 1945 when the British already toned down their bombings.
History revisionist always like to skip over a few details:
Japanese diplomats sold their integrality down the river long ago: how can you trust negotiations with the same diplomats who time after time used peace negotiations as stall tactics to carry out suprise attacks.
At the time of the bombings the Japanese Empire who still had the loyalty and support of the Japanese people were killing more innocent civilians and prisoners a week than the civilian losses at Nagasaki.
AFTER TWO atomic bombings a large part of the leadership STILL did not want surrender and almost executed a successful coup.
➡➡ The Japanese view of World War II is one that emphasizes their position as victims, as exemplified by the dropping of the atomic bombs. 😱😱Every year around on 6th/9th August in Japan , only the fact that countless Japanese people were killed is emphasized. 😱😱Meanwhile, the fact that Japan was an aggressor nation and killed countless people in the Asia-Pacific region is largely ignored. 😱😱Many Japanese believe that Japan's atrocities are absolved by the dropping of the two atomic bombs by the United States. 😱😱
Oh man, that was heavy. No matter how many times I hear it, I am always empathetic, sad and depressed by it.
@@williamcabrol1222 I guess i'm just too jaded these days. Maybe i'm just too much of a believer that there is no such thing as innocent nor innocence in a total war. You pay your taxes, you pay your soldiers. You support someone who pays taxes, then... You can see where this leads. The only way to stop that thread is to stop war, something I would eagerly pursue if only I believed our species was capable of it.
@@DeridusNo innocence? That’s psychotic. So the school children weren’t innocent? See? I’m already slipping on that slope you’ve created. Simply paying your taxes makes you guilty? It was IMPERIAL Japan. They didn’t get to decide who to support. Still don’t really considering Japan is a one party state.
You also say humans are incapable of stopping war while expounding your own warmongering mentality. No doubt built up over years, possibly decades of internalizing military propaganda. Like come on man. 🤦♂️
The fact that one of the bombers was called "Necessary evil" is horrifyingly ironic
I presume that that bomber also participated in "normal" bombing raids over Japan, and that there were many other planes that were given similar names. Giving names to inanimate objects is a very normal human activity, and giving ironic or sarcastic ones is a way to relieve stress. I wonder if there is a record of the various names assigned to planes, ships, tanks, etc. by the various armies in this war.
@@edwardblair4096
If it was part of the 509th, those planes were set apart from the rest of the bomber crews, I think. They were supposed to focus on dropping the A-bomb, rather than doing regular runs
According to wikipedia the bomber wasnt actually named during the bombing, also it carried scientific instruments and was used for observation
@@eldorados_lost_searcherThe 509th dropped “pumpkins” over Japan during the routine fire bombing raids. These were orange painted test articles for the “Fat Man” bomb that were filled with ten tons of high explosive and impact fused.
Dozens of the “pumpkins” were dropped over Japan.
@@eldorados_lost_searcher The planes of the 509th were specially modified for the A-bomb mission, but they were taken from normal usage (planes, particularly new designs like the B-29, being rather expensive) and slated to go back to normal usage after the atomic program was through with them. Tibbets named the Enola Gay only the day before it delivered Little Boy. The plane's original commander was reported by some to be miffed by this since he apparently thought the naming thing was tacky.
Probably is and will continue to be the most second guessed decision ever taken.
Put yourself in Truman's Position. Your advisors tell you the Horrific cost of taking Io Jima and Okinawa will be far exceeded by the invasion on Japan. Both in American casualties. And Horrendous civilian casualties. His advisors unanimously advised the bomb be used.
How could he have justified to the American families of those servicemen who would loose their lives. A decision not to use the bomb.
The Fire Bombing Killed more people.
Even After both bombs had been dropped the Japanese cabinet was split.
After. The Emperor cast the deciding vote.
There was an attempted coup. To prevent the Emperor from surrendering.
There was a delay after the two bombs dropped.
The result.
There was another firebombing raid after the bombs had dropped.
The Americans were getting a 3rd and 4th bomb ready.
Fortunately for the Japanese people. The Bomb was enough to get the Emperor to finally make a choice to choose surender and peace.
Prior to this the Japanese had always planned to negotiate a peace settlement. To their advantage.
The Japanese Strategy prior to the Bomb's.
After the we win the decisive battle.
After the Japanese can no longer hope to win a decisive battle.
The Japanese resistance will cause such terrible casualties the Americans can not sustain we will negotiate a peace.
The Emperor only voiced minor reprimands to the Military as a result of the fire bombings and horrendous civilian casualties. Potsdam Declaration was ignored by the Japanese Government and Emperor.
The Emperor did agree with attempts to start peace negotiations. Not Surrender.
Ironically.
The decisions by the Japanese government to cause the highest possible casualties and accept the extreme Japanese military and civilian casualties lead directly to Trumans Decision to use the bombs.
I am sure. Truman was troubled by this decision for the rest of his life.
I don't think he had a choice.
He was in the position and given the information and expert advice had to authorise its use.
I have been to Japan.
The horror of the bomb. Changed Japan.
Today. Japan is one of the most peaceful countries in the world.
Unlike Germany. Japan has never acknowledged the full horror Japan inflicted on its neighbours.
Agree but important to remember. Nuclear weapons are never good
I was fortunate enough to visit Nagasaki in 1999 while in the Navy. We were the first US warship to port there in many years. The museum near ground zero is a humbling experience to say the least. Whether the bombs ended the war sooner and with less loss of allied life or not, the level of destruction is unfathomable until you see it personally. It will always be once removed from anyone who hasn't seen it, even the aftermath. It is a rough realization that while the governments and militaries were among some of the worst humans to walk the Earth, innocent lives will always be the price paid. Never Forget is as close as we can come to honoring their memory and spread the knowledge that differences we tend to see as unsurmountable, are so easily tipped toward this end.
Yeah no matter if it ended the war or not - the thought that any human would think he knows well enough to decide to kill ten thousand of people with a single bomb for some greater goal is just horrifying…
We all make mistakes, we all miscalculate and yet someone felt confident enough or didn’t care at all about human lives anymore to decide to drop these…
It’s also why in the U.S. people cannot entertain the possibility that the Soviets entering the war could have played a bigger role in Japan’s surrender (we will btw never know since Hirohito never said what in the end moved him in the cabinet discussion) - if that would be the case the U.S. committed one of the most horrific war crimes ever for no reason… (apparently it ending the war makes the war crime acceptable…)
@@bingobongo1615 How many Japanese lives would have been lost if the bombs were not available and invasion was the only option? How long would the fighting in Manchuria and other places the Japanese Army was engaged in have continued? How many Ally lives along with other innocents would have perished, in not let's forget, a war Japan brought to the world and didn't want to end? People who talk about how horrible the bombs were never take into account how much more horrible it would have gone without them.
@@jamie49868..The Firebombings were doing way more death tolls than the Atomic bombs, and it would have gone on had the war continued with no Nukes available.
@@rbgerald2469 Darn tooting. The only reason Hiroshima, Nagasaki, and a couple others were spared the firebombings was because the bomb was in the works.
They also fail to take into account the shortages of food, medical, sanitation, you name it, that would have taken an enormous number of Japanese lives over the months it would have taken to prepare for invasion. And the firebombing would not have stopped.
Just the Japanese lives those bombs saved is probably over 10,000,000, maybe even 20M.
Did you visit Nanking? Manilla? Ask those folks how they feel about those two cities in Japan. Where is the Nanking Memorial?
During my military service I had to go through a course called " radio / bio / chemical", you know learning how to put on a gas mask ect
When the " radio" part came one asks the drill Sargent what comes after such an attack
The drill Sargent replied " those who get evaporated in the initial attack, will be the lucky ones"
.....
When I went through in 2001 it was called NBC (Nuclear, Biological, Chemical). I remember the instructors doing the react to a nuclear blast drill, mask doning, the best shelters to mitigate blast effects, and the best body positions to be in if sheltering in a foxhole. Now it's called CBRN (Chemical, Biological, Radiological, Nuclear), and all it really does is teach personnel how to properly don their masks and MOPP suits with the occasional training on MOPP exchange and decontamination of personnel and equipment.
These days, it CBRN. Chemical, Biological, Radiological, Nuclear. It might seem redundant but, ooooh, no.
In my native language is called ΡΒΧΠ ( pronounced rovitachipi) standing for " radiobiochemical warfare"
@@Pavlos_Charalambous greetings from the US. What is your native language? Sounds like you’ve done a version of this training for another country, correct?
@@bramstedt8997 it's Greek, in Greece every male between 18 to 20 depending on recruitment needs has to serve in the armed forces for about least a year
Usually you get about a month of basic training and then send to a unit were you continue in more advanced training depending on speciality, rank ect
The ΡΒΧΠ training is part of typical exercises although it feels more like a relic of cold war to be honest
I mean some of the equipment is actually cold war east German surplus
If it's alright to plug, The Operations Room yt channel has a great bird's eyeview style vid on the bombing mission.
ha it's in my suggestions. i've already seen it though.
@@lethalnl Nice!
Science is not good or bad, but it could be used for both. We must be extremely careful with handling science.
Thank you Spatacus, Indy, and the whole team for covering this war without glossing over the most disturbing parts, regardless of the offending side.
You have cast a light on the true horrors that lie down the destrucitve path that is humanity's tendency towards tribalism, whether that be along ethnic, religious, or political lines.
The irony of watching this episode while I have the Olympics (tribalism at its best and healthiest IMO) is not lost on me either.
Thank you for watching.
Of other destruction, Tetsuyo "Ted" Fujita, the great tornado researcher, was in the outskirts of Hiroshima when it was bombed and fled to Nagasaki for safety afterward, where once again he was distant enough to survive. Dr Fujita's research has saved countless lives by advancing our understanding of tornadoes, allowing better warnings to be issued.
I think you're confusing two separate men. Fujita was in Kokura (the original target of Fat Man) when the two bombs went off. His life was saved by the weather and he would spend the rest of his life studying it.
This reminds me of the world's shortest horror story:
"He knew the war almost over, because only one bomber was approaching the city."
I've mentioned this before in other comments, but want to do it again here. The War against humanity series may be the most important content on RUclips. You've done a fantastic job with all the research for this series. A lot of it is tough to watch and listen to, but oh so important.
With all the atrocities during this war, you would hope and think that humanity learned something. We may have, but people forget, and sometimes I feel that civilization is very fragile.
Thanks again for a great series, which I assume is almost finished.
What grates on my nerves is Japan basically saying "Look at the horrible things done to our people during the war!" while ignoring and refusing to talk about the horrors THEIR military inflicted on others. They have no right to whine about Hiroshima and Nagasaki and fire bombings when they don't want to even acknowledge the mistreatment of civilian prisoners/POWs; Comfort Women; the Rape of Nanking; Unit 731; the tens of millions of Chinese, Filipino, Indonesian, Korean, Malaysian, and Southeast Asians they brutalized and murdered in their conquests. Christopher Hitchens described it best "For some reason we were never quite able to fathom, the United States suddenly started dropping atomic bombs on us."
While this is 100% true and I completely agree that Japan's refusal to acknowledge and deal with their atrocities is, well, disgusting honestly.
If we're talking about the original point about humanity not learning from this, I would say part of that problem is also that atrocities committed by the Allies have been hugely glossed over and ignored.
Apart from the Soviets, you basically never in mainstream history hear about anything bad done by the Allies. And if you do mention it, are immediately met by whatsboutism showing how the Nazis and Japan were so much worse.
Which again, don't disagree.
But if we're talking about humanity as a whole learning from history, then it is really important for people to learn about how every human is corruptible and capable of evil acts when put in dehumanising and terrible situations.
Otherwise it's far too easy, as is what's happened really with WW2 discourse, to turn it into a simplistic case of Good v Evil with no room for nuance and reflection on how we got to such tragedies to avoid them in the future.
@@Southpaw535 I don't know if what you say is so true, It seems to me, that now days, all one hears is how terrible our generals were and all of the terrible things the Allies did to the poor Germans and Japs. I've been around a while, and the aggressors almost always turn out to be the victims and the liberators become the criminals. So many people don't understand hindsight. And one must consider the pressures placed upon the allied leaders to end the wars as quickly as possible. Mistakes were made and crimes were committed no doubt, but what would we have done if put in those old heroes shoes? Probably shit our own pants at the very least.
Hear, hear Sparty. A sobering episode as always. And a chilling glimpse of what may yet come.
The US already had their own decrypt of the Japanese "Attempt" sent to the Soviets. The first part of the proposal was a sincere attempt at having the USSR broker a peace deal (but Japan snubbed proposals from Switzerland, the Vatican and Sweden). However the Hawks insisted two other proposals: a trade deal with the USSR (with the Soviets providing shipping), and a military alliance. Such a proposal confused Soviets, the US, and the Japanese ambassador to the Soviet Union alike.
I believe this shows they were afraid of the "barbarian" Americans, and thought only the Soviet Union could protect them. That's why they ignored peace efforts from Switzerland and the Vatican.
I'm surprised at how the emperor, Hirohito, is given a pass in all this. He knew full well how much the Japanese people suffered, and he approved all major military decisions--indeed, they required his approval to be implemented. He could have forced a surrender well before August, but clung onto the myth of divine resistance. He deserved to be tried as a war criminal. I think it telling that when we conducted an aerial demonstration of B-29s just after the surrender, Hirohito's wife, the empress, wrote that she couldn't help thinking that Japan should have paid more attention to the "scientific side" of war. Not much remorse there.
A few months ago I met a World War II US Army Air Corps veteran who witnessed the mushroom cloud over Hiroshima while flying
"Dropped from Enola, a city erased
Threat of the future displayed,
A power unheard of a power unseen,
Flash out of nowhere, the sky is burning!"
-Sabaton, Nuclear Attack
The only two times so far in History that an Atomic Weapon was deployed in a war. And we should count ourselves lucky for that.
Iron maiden had put it more poetically
"Out of the the universe
A strange love is born
Unholy union
Trinity reformed
Yellow sun, its evil twin
In the black the winds deliver him
We will sleep to souls within
Atom seed to nuclear dust is riven"
( brighter than a thousand suns)
Oppenheimer: "Albert. When I came to you with those calculations. We thought it might start a chain reaction that would destroy the entire world".
Einstein: "I remember it well. What of it?"
Oppenheimer: "I believe we did".
Lets not do this again…
41:43, can you cite this claim that 100 thermonuclear explosions would cascade throughout Earth's atmosphere? That claim is extremely dubious.
I am moved and troubled... Your documentary is very informative and eye-opening. I salute the excellence of your work. Never forget? No, always remember and remind others, especially the younger generation, of what Humans are capable of, and why sane humans must always act to spare the Planet annihilation. Cheers, Sparty, and team!
Thank you for this outstanding episode. You make an excellent point regarding the ‘saving face’ for the IJA. Incredible summary of a terrible period in world history. Never Forget.
Why would the Ultra-nationalist Japanese gov't have responded to a new Soviet invasion threat any differently than they had already committed to in order to resist the Allied invasion threat? They'd just have adjusted to a two front defense, and waited for the hammer to drop.. In the mean time, more and more millions of Japanese would have died of starvation and/or epidemic disease. So it does seem the atomic weapons, whether via intimidation or offering the hardliners a face saving exit strategy, did something to catalyze an early end of the war. Thus, in some sense, the horrible price paid by the victims of the atomic bombings brought the lives of an estimated ~10,000,000 of their fellow countrymen.
Let us not forget that this was the direct result of the expansionist and militarist desires of the Japanese Empire spanning over half a century. At that point, Japan had invaded multiple countries throughout East and Southeast Asia, robbed them of their resources, and deliberately enslaved and massacred their local residents. While ordinary Japanese citizens on that day finally found out what "hell" could feel like on the days of the bombings, many elsewhere within the so-called "Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere" had literally lived in hell under Japanese occupation since the end of the previous century, they had to get by under what would be considered unimaginably harsh and hopeless conditions, underneath the endless shadows casted by the black sun that was the Japanese Empire, a black sun that sucked everything dry so the Empire could envelop even more poor souls and swallow even more innocent lives elsewhere.
Only the Japanese have forgotten, everyone else remembers. A tragic and atrocious end to a very brutal colonial empire
‘Japan was “close to surrendering”. You might as well say they were close to surrendering through all of 1945.
Their government remained stalemated even after the first bomb - I say you are wrong that they would have surrendered in anything like a timely manner if the bomb hadn’t been dropped
"Now we're all sons of bitches." - Kenneth Bainbridge to Oppenheimmer, immediately after the Trinity test.
The parents of my late brother-in-law, James "JJ" Kenji Jenkins, bookmarks the horrors of this war.
His father (David) was from the Midwest and loathed it; he was able to get himself a position in the US Navy in late 1940 and was shipped off for basic training in March of 1941. Through one thing and another he was delayed actually being assigned to a vessel, but was finally put on a supply ship out of San Diego and shipped out on November 30th, 1941. His ship was suddenly redirected to Pearl Harbor. He arrived two days after the attack; his first official task in the Navy was spending two weeks pulling bodies and debris out of the harbor. He took to drinking heavily.
JJ's mother (Kumiko) was a native of Nagasaki. During the war she worked as a secretary & courier for a Japanese firm (she never said specifically which one). One day in late July 1945 her boss told her she needed to make certain that a contract got signed. So, this being the war and she being a woman, she got on her bicycle and pedaled off towards Hiroshima. By the time she arrived, there was a barricade in place and she was told to turn around. By the time she got back to Nagasaki she was med with another barricade, but since she was a resident she was immediately put to work cleaning up the town. For the next 2-3 months she aided in the recovery of bodies and removal of rubble. She took to drinking heavily.
David was part of the occupation force after the war. He met Kumiko in a bar and they were soon dating. They got permission to marry and she returned with him to Alameda, CA, about eight months later. JJ remembers them constantly yelling at each other, both smoking like chimneys, and half their time utterly drunk. It was not what you would call a successful marriage, but Kumiko refused to divorce her husband. David would sometimes go down to the Alameda Naval Base in his old (by now ill-fitting and much in need or repair) WWII uniform and try to cage drinks from folks in return for war stories. The MPs got used to pouring him into a taxi and sending him home.
His father died of liver issues when JJ was still a teen. His mother died of lung cancer when JJ was in his 40s.
So here was the cost of war on two generations. JJ never went to war, but had to fight against the tendency towards alcohol all his life. He never knew what a happy home was really like until much later in life. He was teased for not looking quite American enough by other kids. And home was a place of drinking, smoking, and yelling. Here were two people who were living with deep pain and trauma who only compounded each other's bad tendencies and spread it on to their child. The cost of war is felt down the generations.
Here’s a deeply depressing thought. It is my considered opinion that, as of now, August 2024, the atomic bomb has been a net good for humanity, in that it has saved many, many times more lives than it has taken. Let me explain.
First: without the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, I believe that the United States, Britain, and the Soviet Union would have invaded Japan. Operation Downfall has been discussed at some length on the main channel. Suffice it to say that American estimates suggested a million dead Americans, four to five times as many wounded, and up to ten times that many dead Japanese. That is only in the American sectors: it takes no account of Soviet or British losses. Compared to the death toll of a full-scale invasion, Hiroshima and Nagasaki were at least a full order of magnitude less destructive.
Second: without the threat of nuclear annihilation, it is my firm conviction that the Warsaw Pact and NATO would have gone to war before the Soviet Union’s collapse. We came dangerously close more than once. Korea, Vietnam, Cuba; these, and many more proxy conflicts, could easily have spiraled out of control without the not-entirely-metaphorical gun to the head that nuclear war represented. Had NATO and the Warsaw Pack fought, World War Three would have been to World War Two what World War Two was to World War One: an order of magnitude more destructive, more devastating, more global. Tens of millions dead, at least, and hundreds of cities razed to the ground. The sacrifice of two medium-sized cities to spare hundreds, sickening as it is, is the only logical choice.
It’s quite the condemnation of humanity, is it not: that our current timeline, dark as it is, is likely _better_ than what might have been.
The Japanese peace faction wasn't about to surrender unconditionally. They were trying to negotiate a surrender. That didn't just mean keeping the Emperor, they wanted to keep territory, not demilitarize, not be occupied, and not have war crimes trials performed. Different members had conflicting ideas over what they wanted. They wanted to surrender, but still didn't want to unconditionally.
Seventy nine years later it's way too easy to Monday morning quarterback ehat happened. There are way too many what ifs, and yeah buts.
Well beyond profoundly touched by this series. It is sad that this war against Humanity still rages on. Why hate manifests itself is beyond me, when will we as living beings ever learn, or even care to???
Brilliant work , tragically brilliant.....
The Imperial Cabinet was equally divided between civilian and military members but the military leaders held control. They had to be forced into surrender by the civilians and as the Kyujo incident shows, the peace party’s victory was tenuous.
Spartacus, this was a brilliant presentation. Congratulations and many thanks. My father after completing an enlistment in the U.S. Navy was discharged after VE day. He immediately enlisted in the U.S.Marine Corps. He anticipated the final push in the Pacific theater and the eventual invasion of Japan. When I was a young boy in the early 1960's through television and movies I had become aware of WWII. I asked my Dad many questions about the war. He never had much to say but he did state that given the way the Marines approached war, he doubted that he would have survived the invasion of Japan. He thought that the bomb saved his and many others lives. Ironically, after the war he found himself stationed in China where the Marines fought some little known but intense battles against the PLA. We are quite clever and inventive when it comes to slaughtering one another. This is the "original sin" we all have to overcome.
Perhaps if Japan's leaders - military AND civilian - were not hellbent on fighting to the last man, woman and child, and accepted the terms of unconditional surrender, they would not have had to suffer this further example of "the war against humanity." Unfortunately, the Japanese proved - on Iwo Jima, Okinawa, etc. - that "surrender" was not a word in their national lexicon. Moreover, and before I allow for any national "guilt trip" to be laid at my country's feet, I remind the world of the unspeakable atrocities Japan's military butchers committed against Allied POW's, Chinese, Korean and Filipino civilians - and other peoples of whom Japan's military establishment deemed "sub-human." Further, I will remind the world that, so brutal were their "war crimes against humanity," it is said even the Germans were appalled at Japan's actions.
Well they knew what nuclears could do and still threw them. I don't think it's proper to blame people like Oppenheimer for being scientists.
Yes and no. Just because you can doesn’t mean you should.
I don't think it's fair to ascribe blame on any one person except the president, in this case. That would be like blaming every single factory worker who produced bombs or bullets for death.
@@cwovictor3281 It's not fair to blame a President whose main motivation was to potentially save tens of thousands of lives of his citizens. If blame must be placed it belongs to all of us as we as a species cannot figure out how to live in peace- and nobody's really trying.
Not ONE condition, Sparty! FOUR conditions! FOUR!
Four ridiculously unrealistic conditions too.
Hirohito "the fruits of victory are tumbling into our mouths too quickly"
The 2 fruits on their way to southern japan:
( Gangsta's paradise choir )
Let’s put this in perspective. The Japanese killed as many as 30 million people in the war they started. Their losses were a fraction of that.
Most of them civilians and in most horrendous ways.
The decision should be discussed, and always should be discussed.