On the 65th anniversary of the beginning of the horror on Iwo Jima, February 19, 1945 - March 26, 1945. Why did Truman and Marshall decide to use the atomic weapons after Curtis LeMay's firebombing B-29s did not break the Japanese warlords?...
Purple Hearts.
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I just happened to see Eastwood's "Flags..." last week. I generally like Eastwood's stuff -all the way back to when he played the role of Rowdy Yates on 'Rawhide'. "Flags..." I didn't much care for. This is not to say that anyone working such a large canvas could have done much better.
I found myself restless watching it - looking at my watch; fast-forwarding through much of it. I never was one to be overly intrigued by blood and guts. Still, the Japs were shown as they were: utterly fearless - and this with what looked like the entire U.S. navy surrounding the island and it's version of Hamburger Hill.
The film made it clear, there was no other way to defeat them but to drop the bomb - and they needed to be defeated. It put an end to the bloodletting - at least on our side.
The point is, we knew which side we were on. The whole country knew. Our people were buying war bonds. They were invested in victory. Anything less would have amounted to the ultimate betrayal.
Even the Japanese would respect us for it. Eventually they even came to admire us - much to the chagrin of nationalists like author,Yukio Mishima. Had he lived, he would have seen himself vindicated. He understood honor. He would have looked across the ocean and spat disdainfully at the cowardice and division that we’ve allowed to hollow our once great nation. I’m not sure what Eastwood’s point was. Perhaps it was to point out aberrant parallels.
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I have to say I am a little tired of the james bradley show. I've heard him on JB's show before, I've heard him on Imus. Enough. It's a little bit of a non-sequitur to go from TR let the japs have Korea to that made it OK for them to attack pearl harbor and do the the things they did. The guy has a narrative, and I don't buy all of it. How many presidents did we have in between? 6? No matter what, the Japanese had the agenda to expand globally. May be TR made it a little easier. Ultimately, they got their comeuppance. As the saying goes, your right to take a swing at me ends at the tip of my nose. It sounds like Bradey is apologizing for the war. We have nothing to apologize about.
Good points Mr. Batchelor! And in keeping with what Mr. D. M. Giangreco said on your show in November.
I enjoyed that conversation with the author of Hell to Pay, I only wish a podcast of your discussion with him was available. It was fascinating. Any chance you might have him back on your program now that the new TV show on the war in the Pacific is generating lots of interest?
Two atomic bombs had to be dropped on Japan before the Japanese government was willing to surrender. First a uranium device was dropped on Hiroshima, and subsequently a plutonium device was dropped on Nagasaki.
It has been claimed by the self-serving gauche that the second bomb was dropped for no other purpose than to test a plutonium device. The truth is that the second bomb was a plutonium device because we had already used our only uranium device.