70 years ago. Always thought it was a necessary evil but not so sure now.

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Then again the Japanese still refused to surrender and of course the atrocities they committed were absolutely horrific.

Worryingly there is a significant movement within Japan trying to rewrite history.
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The present day "revisionist" attitudes gaining more prominence in some quarters in Japan is indeed IMO of concern.

I understand some of their school textbooks about the period have long been iffy coupled with refusing to recognise what happened with the Korean sex slave "comfort women" or the massacre at Nanking, "the rape" of Nanking",(nowadays known as Nanjing) an horrendous atrocity.Its thought that over a six week period in 1937 100,000-200,000 soldiers and civilians were massacred and between 20-80,000 women sexually assaulted

At the end of the war,the Americans decided to leave the Emperor Hirohito on the throne for "stability". He was later invited to make a state visit to the UK.

This was not withstanding that the ultimate sanction for the massacre at Nanking and other atrocities in China was rooted in Hirohito's ratification of the army's proposal that the constraints of international law be removed where the treatment of Chinese "prisoners" was concerned.

Things today not helped by the current PM having gone out of his way in recent times to pay homage at the shrine where the war criminals executed after the war's remains are.

In 2007, a group of around 100 representatives of one of the main political parties claimed the Nanking Massacre was a fabrication. In 2012, the mayor of Nagoya, told a visiting delegation from Nanking that the massacre "probably never happened".
In 2012, the governor of Tokyo said he also believed that the Nanking massacre never happened.

Edited by legaleagle (05 Aug 2015 11.59pm)

It was a real life medical experiment without anaesthetic by the US.

They could have quite easily have dropped the bombs 40 miles from Tokyo in a non-populated area and warned that the city would be next on the list if they didn't surrender.

The population of Hiroshima at the time was mostly kids, women and old people as the men were away soldiering. Something the US would also have obviously known.

A heinous act.

Big chest and massive boobs

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Given that Nagasaki was bombed three days later, its hard to be certain whether Japan would have surrendered or not. Its important to remember that Japan would have essentially had almost no idea what happened at Hiroshima as the bomb destroyed all communications and logistics, whilst creating a humanitarian disaster to cope with.

Was it necessary, probably, and it probably saved US Service men's lives, but that doesn't mean it wasn't a war crime. Most war crimes can be justified in those kinds of terms to some extent. But it was also an experiment as well, and the option was specifically taken to hit land targets with civilian populations, rather than a number of available military targets, including the remains of the Japanese fleet (both targets had some military value, although when dropping nuclear bombs, it is kind of hard not to hit something that can be classed as having military value, especially after six years of a war).

The US, in preparation for the invasion of Japan, produced Purple Heart medals, in such quantity, that they would not have to manufacture any new medals until the 21st Century (During the Iraq Insurgency).

"One Nation Under God, has turned into One Nation Under the Influence of One Drug"
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I think it underlines the nature of war where in necessary isn't the same as being right, or just, and the longer it goes on, the more the atrocities tend to stack up, and the horror is perpetuated.

Ultimately, you have to win, especially when you consider the stakes involved in those wars, where national existence was at stake. Winner takes all. Dresden, Hiroshima and Nagasaki, were probably all war crimes, as was most of what the SOE did, resistance groups were terrorist groups.

The real danger I suspect is that we tend to see it in a myopic view (Dresden justified by the Blitz, because the Germans did it first), but in truth both were arguably indiscriminate massacres of civilians. The moral or ethical argument doesn't really hold up. They killed ours, we killed theirs, necessary isn't the same as right.

Wars aren't fought on ethics or morality, but on the need to survive and to win.

"One Nation Under God, has turned into One Nation Under the Influence of One Drug"
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Evidence for that, please.