http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20071101/ap_on_re_us/obit_tibbets
The man who dropped deployed the first atomic weapon in WW2 dies at age 92.
If you can get a copy of his memoirs....it's a first class read.
This is from Jeff Cooper's Commentaries and was his assessment of the dropping of the first atomic bomb (and he had full agreement from me - I was still on active duty also and had received my immunizations in preparation for being transferred to the Pacific Theater):
"When we dropped the bomb on Hiroshima, there was certainly no reluctance for this dire act. Amongst the men involved in the fight in the Pacific, we gathered the idea that the Nips were simply not going to surrender, and that if we went forward with the invasion of the Japanese homeland, we could expect to suffer about 1 million American dead, at the same time killing about 20 million Japanese. That was the figure that I gathered in my job as an assistant G2 for the landing on Kyushu. It meant to me that the only way that I could avoid being killed in the invasion would be to suffer a critical injury and be evacuated alive - not a pleasant prospect. Historical review seems to agree that Japan had been so reduced by our submarine campaign that, coupled with the B29s, the Emperor might actually have decided to surrender. We did not know this, nor did we suspect it, and we were prepared for a very nasty campaign - on both sides.
Further research discloses the presence of a Japanese policy directive which called for the murder of all American prisoners being held at the time. This comes to the number of 144,000, all to be put to death immediately upon the landing of the first allied soldier on the homeland of Japan. I thought the decision to drop the bomb was fully justified at that time, and I think so even more now. The atom bomb was a dreadful thing, but its use turned out to be an enormous life-saver.
This poses a massive political option at this present stage in history. Various powers now have the capacity to employ the nuclear weapon, but the choices do not seem to force any cataclysmic decision. Just how does one employ nuclear power against an enemy who has no concrete political structure? I suppose that the Jihadis may feel that the eradication of Israel is not only a feasible, but a desirable course of action. That, however, does not offer a contrary move. Parallels are offered in regard to the refusal of either side to use poison gas in World War II, but the circumstances are not comparable. Such a puzzlement!"
________________________________________
RIP PAUL, SIR !!!
The man who dropped deployed the first atomic weapon in WW2 dies at age 92.
If you can get a copy of his memoirs....it's a first class read.
This is from Jeff Cooper's Commentaries and was his assessment of the dropping of the first atomic bomb (and he had full agreement from me - I was still on active duty also and had received my immunizations in preparation for being transferred to the Pacific Theater):
"When we dropped the bomb on Hiroshima, there was certainly no reluctance for this dire act. Amongst the men involved in the fight in the Pacific, we gathered the idea that the Nips were simply not going to surrender, and that if we went forward with the invasion of the Japanese homeland, we could expect to suffer about 1 million American dead, at the same time killing about 20 million Japanese. That was the figure that I gathered in my job as an assistant G2 for the landing on Kyushu. It meant to me that the only way that I could avoid being killed in the invasion would be to suffer a critical injury and be evacuated alive - not a pleasant prospect. Historical review seems to agree that Japan had been so reduced by our submarine campaign that, coupled with the B29s, the Emperor might actually have decided to surrender. We did not know this, nor did we suspect it, and we were prepared for a very nasty campaign - on both sides.
Further research discloses the presence of a Japanese policy directive which called for the murder of all American prisoners being held at the time. This comes to the number of 144,000, all to be put to death immediately upon the landing of the first allied soldier on the homeland of Japan. I thought the decision to drop the bomb was fully justified at that time, and I think so even more now. The atom bomb was a dreadful thing, but its use turned out to be an enormous life-saver.
This poses a massive political option at this present stage in history. Various powers now have the capacity to employ the nuclear weapon, but the choices do not seem to force any cataclysmic decision. Just how does one employ nuclear power against an enemy who has no concrete political structure? I suppose that the Jihadis may feel that the eradication of Israel is not only a feasible, but a desirable course of action. That, however, does not offer a contrary move. Parallels are offered in regard to the refusal of either side to use poison gas in World War II, but the circumstances are not comparable. Such a puzzlement!"
________________________________________
RIP PAUL, SIR !!!