Beirut explosion.

[Robin Evans]

7 minutes ago, Bleep1673 said:

Yes, 75 years since the USA committed the largest mass murder in history, in a single act.

Weren't more killed at Dresden?

[gingerjon]

43 minutes ago, Robin Evans said:

Weren't more killed at Dresden?

No. “Only” around 25,000 killed at Dresden. The immediate toll at Hiroshima was over 100,000 and that at least doubled owing to radiation poisoning etc.

[DavidM]

The counter has always been how many would have died given a full scale assault on the home islands , given the evidence of Okinawa and the fanaticism of Japanese resistance . The imperial command was never accepting of surrender , even planning mobilisation of every civilian .And the Russians were eyeing that way , and many POW’s would have starved if the war dragged on 

[Saintslass]

2 hours ago, Bleep1673 said:

Yes, 75 years since the USA committed the largest mass murder in history, in a single act.

It is so easy for those of us in post WW2 generations to make sweeping judgements but we weren't there.  The Japanese culture at the time did not allow for surrender.

An uncle of mine spent most of the war in a Japanese POW camp.  They did not respect any international conventions, put it that way, in their treatment of prisoners.   

[Robin Evans]

3 minutes ago, DavidM said:

The counter has always been how many would have died given a full scale assault on the home islands , given the evidence of Okinawa and the fanaticism of Japanese resistance 

Yes. The estimated losses of allied lives to secure victory over Japan was deemed unacceptable given the evidence you cite. 

Approval for the use of the bomb was given. Estimated suggest it shorted the war by months and cost far fewer net lives by using the bomb.

I cannot comprehend what the Japanese experience of those two events were. 

[Saintslass]

1 minute ago, Robin Evans said:

I cannot comprehend what the Japanese experience of those two events were. 

Horrendous.  

Let's hope we never find out.

[DavidM]

10 minutes ago, Saintslass said:

An uncle of mine spent most of the war in a Japanese POW camp.  They did not respect any international conventions, put it that way, in their treatment of prisoners.   

Great uncle of mine . Came back but didn’t really come back ... got up one day not long after and just vanished , never seen again 

[gingerjon]

On 08/08/2020 at 12:39, Bleep1673 said:

There was a documentary on TV about the Hiroshima bombings, the other day, I think on BBC, It was horrific, and looked very similar in the aftermath, geophysically to what happened in Beirut, although Hiroshima had problems with nuclear poisoning that went on for years, but I just sat there and watched in horror about what happened in Hiroshima, and Beirut, at the similar sized devastation.

 

It's worth noting that whilst it's possible, just, to justify Hiroshima, it is absolutely impossible to do so with Nagasaki.

This handy thread gives a primer as to why ...

 

[JohnM]

Thank you for the completely non political and even handed  contributions on a thread related to the Beirut disaster. 

Lovely people, the Japanese were.  Much better than those pesky Americans. 

The Imperial Japanese Army Air Service took part in conducting chemical and biological attacks on enemy nationals during the Second Sino-Japanese War and World War II and the use of such weapons in warfare were generally prohibited by international agreements signed by Japan, including the Hague Conventions (1899 and 1907), which banned the use of "poison or poisoned weapons" in warfare.^[12][13]

Total U.S. combat casualties in the war against Japan were thus 111,606 dead or missing and another 253,142 wounded.

 

[Jeff Stein]

I was always in two minds about the nuclear bombings until I visited Manila and was introduced to what was done by a few thousand Japanese hold outs in the Battle of Manila in 1945 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manila_massacre

Their behavior on Okinawa was just as bad where the locals weren't seen as truly Japanese. Fighting up the mainland would have involved a horrendous loss of life.

[Old Frightful]

Seven months on and chilling drone footage shows the area as though the explosion only happened yesterday.

https://www.liveleak.com/view?t=CvDeB_1615902122