[ RadSafe ] [EXTERNAL] Re: ATOMIC OVERLOOK

Tue Oct 28 11:33:21 CDT 2014

Noted

Peter G. Vernig
Radiation Safety Officer
(303) 399-8020 ext. 2447
Fax (303) 393-5026

-----Original Message-----
From: radsafe-bounces at health.phys.iit.edu [mailto:radsafe-bounces at health.phys.iit.edu] On Behalf Of Strickert, Rick (Consultant)
Sent: Tuesday, October 28, 2014 10:28 AM
To: The International Radiation Protection (Health Physics) Mailing List
Subject: Re: [ RadSafe ] [EXTERNAL] Re: ATOMIC OVERLOOK

You wrote: "I gathered that, they were just bigger and better. Didn't seem like the psychological effect of the complete devastation was considered."

Recall that Gen. Curtis LeMay, head of the 21st Bomber Command, had been conducting firebombing raids on Japanese cities in 1945.   LeMay, as a protégé of Air Marshall Arthur 'Bomber' Harris, had bombed German cities.   LeMay's view (and probably that of the typical solder fighting in the Pacific) was that any Japanese city aiding the Japanese war effort was an open target for attack by incendiary raids.  This pretty much included every city since the manufacturing of war materials included Japanese homes serving as a cottage industry for making small military components.  Deaths in the firebombings were comparable to the deaths in Hiroshima or Nagasaki.

There were no significant arguments that this wholesale destruction of Japanese cities was immoral, especially because Japanese atrocities on American and other Allied POWs were well known, and because of Pearl Harbor.

Rick Strickert
Austin, TX

-----Original Message-----
From: radsafe-bounces at health.phys.iit.edu [mailto:radsafe-bounces at health.phys.iit.edu] On Behalf Of Vernig, Peter G.
Sent: Tuesday, October 28, 2014 10:36 AM
To: The International Radiation Protection (Health Physics) MailingList
Subject: Re: [ RadSafe ] [EXTERNAL] Re: ATOMIC OVERLOOK

You wrote, "... there was no indication that the interval between dropping atomic bombs on Japan was based on giving Japan time to consider their options."

I gathered that, they were just bigger and better. Didn't seem like the psychological effect of the complete devastation was considered.

Peter G. Vernig
Radiation Safety Officer
(303) 399-8020 ext. 2447
Fax (303) 393-5026

-----Original Message-----
From: radsafe-bounces at health.phys.iit.edu [mailto:radsafe-bounces at health.phys.iit.edu] On Behalf Of Strickert, Rick (Consultant)
Sent: Tuesday, October 28, 2014 9:31 AM
To: The International Radiation Protection (Health Physics) Mailing List
Subject: Re: [ RadSafe ] [EXTERNAL] Re: ATOMIC OVERLOOK

Even after Nagasaki, there was no indication that the interval between dropping atomic bombs on Japan was based on giving Japan time to consider their options.  It appeared to be more on the logistics in getting the bombs and planes ready for another mission, in preparation, ultimately, for an invasion of Japan.

From statements made on August 13, 1945, by General Hull and Colonel Seaman  (http://www2.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB162/72.pdf):

"The problem now is whether or not, assuming the Japanese do not capitulate, to continue dropping them every time one is made and shipped out there or whether to hold them up as far as the dropping is concerned and then pour them all on in a reasonably short time. Not all in one day, but over a short period. And that also takes into consideration the target that we are after. In other words, should we not concentrate on targets that will be of the greatest assistance to an invasion rather than industry, morale, psychology, and the like? Nearer the tactical use rather than other use."

Rick Strickert
Austin, TX

-----Original Message-----
From: radsafe-bounces at health.phys.iit.edu [mailto:radsafe-bounces at health.phys.iit.edu] On Behalf Of Vernig, Peter G.
Sent: Tuesday, October 28, 2014 10:15 AM
To: The International Radiation Protection (Health Physics) MailingList
Subject: Re: [ RadSafe ] [EXTERNAL] Re: ATOMIC OVERLOOK

That article is very interesting and of course, the situation much more complex than I and I would assume most of us realize. I still would think a surrender demand post Hiroshima and pre Nagasaki might have been a good move that might have saved a whole lot of lives and destruction but I am much less sure and can certainly understand what happened.

Peter G. Vernig
Radiation Safety Officer
(303) 399-8020 ext. 2447
Fax (303) 393-5026

-----Original Message-----
From: radsafe-bounces at health.phys.iit.edu [mailto:radsafe-bounces at health.phys.iit.edu] On Behalf Of Estabrooks, H Bates (IHK)
Sent: Tuesday, October 28, 2014 8:33 AM
To: The International Radiation Protection (Health Physics) MailingList
Subject: Re: [ RadSafe ] [EXTERNAL] Re: ATOMIC OVERLOOK

This is an informative read re. what we knew about Japan's interest in surrendering, pre- and post-Hiroshima.

http://www.weeklystandard.com/Content/Public/Articles/000/000/005/894mnyyl.asp

-----Original Message-----
From: radsafe-bounces at health.phys.iit.edu [mailto:radsafe-bounces at health.phys.iit.edu] On Behalf Of Vernig, Peter G.
Sent: Tuesday, October 28, 2014 10:06 AM
To: The International Radiation Protection (Health Physics) MailingList
Subject: Re: [ RadSafe ] [EXTERNAL] Re: ATOMIC OVERLOOK

The invasion of Japan would probably have cost a whole lot more US lives and maybe even more Japanese lives that Hiroshima.

There was a discussion apparently of doing a demo and then requesting/demanding surrender and that was decided against.

The thing I don't understand was Nagasaki. After Hiroshima, it was what 3 days and then they hit Nagasaki? I could understand not feeling the demo  would be believed or would have taken a lot of time while more fighting went on but after Hiroshima seems like they could have waited and possibly then done an actual demo without further death and destruction. And if that hadn't worked, my understanding was a third bomb was on the way.

Peter G. Vernig
Radiation Safety Officer
(303) 399-8020 ext. 2447
Fax (303) 393-5026

-----Original Message-----
From: radsafe-bounces at health.phys.iit.edu [mailto:radsafe-bounces at health.phys.iit.edu] On Behalf Of Strickert, Rick (Consultant)
Sent: Tuesday, October 28, 2014 7:45 AM
To: The International Radiation Protection (Health Physics) Mailing List
Subject: [EXTERNAL] Re: [ RadSafe ] ATOMIC OVERLOOK

Regarding the claim about the atomic bomb used on Nagasaki (or Hiroshima):  "The monstrous crime was using it just as starting shot of the cold war."

This is simple a personal political opinion of some people, devoid of the reality of WWII.  Here's an opinion from someone else:

“The atom bomb was no ‘great decision’… It was merely another powerful weapon in the arsenal of righteousness.” – Harry S. Truman, at a Columbia University Seminar, April 28, 1959, New York City.  As quoted in The Buck Stops Here: The 28 Toughest Presidential Decisions and How They Changed History, Thomas J. Craughwell, Edwin Kiester Jr., Quarry Books, 2010, p. 178.

Here are some other relevant quotes:

“We have spent two billion dollars on the greatest scientific gamble in history — and won,” President Harry Truman, The New York Times, Tuesday, August 7, 1945, p. 1

"Having found the bomb we have used it. We have used it against those who attacked us without warning at Pearl Harbor, against those who have starved and beaten and executed American prisoners of war, against those who have abandoned all pretense of obeying international laws of warfare. We have used it in order to shorten the agony of war, in order to save the lives of thousands and thousands of young Americans." 
("Public Papers of the Presidents: Harry S Truman, 1945", pg. 212).

“During a meeting at the White House in October 1945, [Robert] Oppenheimer tried to convey his deep moral crisis. ‘Mr. President, I have blood on my hands,’ he remarked. ‘Never mind,’ Truman replied, ‘it’ll all come out in the wash.’ (According to some accounts he offered Oppenheimer a hankerchief.) ‘Don’t you bring that crybaby in here again,’ Truman later told an aide. ‘After all, all he did was make the bomb. I’m the guy who fired it off.’” — Excerpted from The Bomb: A Life (Gerard J. DeGroot, Harvard University Press, 2004, p. 111)

“Don’t bother me with your conscientious scruples. After all the thing’s superb physics.”  – Enrico Fermi, taken from Brighter than a Thousand Suns, Robert Jungk, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 1970, p. 202.

“Science has nothing to be ashamed of, even in the ruins of Nagasaki.” – Jacob Bronowski (1908-1974), Science and Human Values Harper and Row, New York, 1959, p. 73

“No country without an atom bomb could properly consider itself independent.” – Charles de Gaulle (1890-1970), New York Times Magazine 12 May 1968, pp. 102-103. 

Rick Strickert
Austin, TX

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