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The Clouds of Hiroshima

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Re: The Clouds of Hiroshima

#21

Post by gonzalohm »

TacticalCoder wrote: post #19
nelox wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Horrific, yes. However, estimates for the total number of people killed by Imperial Japan during World War II (primarily 1937–1945) range from roughly 20 to 30 million or higher across the Asia-Pacific theater, and they refused unconditional surrender until 2 atomic bombs stopped them killing who knows how many more.

It also prevented Russia, after having annihilated the nazis (from the east), from spanking Japan's ass and conquering Japan. The US killed two birds with two nukes: they prevented Japan from continuing their rampage and they prevented Russia from taking Japan.

Do you really think any European country was in shape to face Japan? Russia experienced a famine right after Germany capitulated, they almost lost Moscow, they received billions of dollars from the US to be able to finish the war. I think just trying to mobilize their troops to the east would have been unimaginable

Re: The Clouds of Hiroshima

#22

Post by gonzalohm »

defrost wrote: post #6
voidUpdate wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Depends, do you consider death by burns and smoke inhalation to be worse than death by having your skin stripped off by the blast, your appendages completely burned off in an instant, people completely losing their mind, pregnant women dying and having their unborn children exposed to the open air? I've heard all of those in testimonies from survivors. Yes, both of those events are terrible and shouldn't have happene…

> I've heard all of those in testimonies from survivors. You've read the testimonies of those that survived Dresden and Tokyo then? Again, dead is dead, injured by temperatures that melt flesh is the same regardless of heat source. Is there any reason to elevate death by atomic weapon above death by carpet bombing HE's and incendiaries?

Hmm yes there are multiple reasons. If you were to survive a nuclear explosion you are probably going to go through a slow and painful death that can go from minutes to years.

Depending on how affected you are, you can become literally poisonous to touch. And that's just for people affected by the explosion. Then there are the people that won't be able to go back home because of radiation. That's a different kind of pain. And yes, bombs also can bulldoze cities, but at least you can recover and reconstruct

Re: The Clouds of Hiroshima

#23

Post by trhway »

goodwillhunting wrote: post #15

I've never seen the ones from the ground, truly an apocalyptic sight if I've ever seen one. I can't imagine what it would be the to be person actually taking that shot. I bet they are forever changed. Thank you for posting! a welcome change if only for a minute from the deluge of openAI posts.

Especially apocalyptic given that they had never knew such things possible.

Later it became routine.

https://youtu.be/YtCTzbh4mNQ?t=62 (narrator saying - "the mushroom cloud reached 65km altitude" ) Our high school military preparedness classes teacher was a retired "Captain of 2nd rank" (subcolonel equivalent in USSR Navy) who had served at that "Novaja Zemlja" islands nuclear testing range. He was describing that regular nukes they would just watch from 20km. While large hydrogen bombs they were watching from like 200km, and it still was awe-fear-inspiring.

"Nuclear Tourism: When Atomic Tests Were a Tourist Attraction in Las Vegas, 1950s"

https://rarehistoricalphotos.com/atomic-tourism-las-vegas/ (cool sight https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-o6mAaNEPm8g/X212lrhyZPI/AAAAAAAD4... :)

Re: The Clouds of Hiroshima

#24

Post by johnea »

From the article:

> It is an impressive sight.

The fascination with this is more than a little disturbing.

Somewhat reassuring to see that many comments here interpret the images as a call to eliminate nuclear weapons. But it's hard to image our current ape man species moving away from mass murder as an international policy implementation.

The propensity of our primate species for self annihilation doesn't pose much hope for extended survival.

Innate murderous tendencies that may have encouraged the caveman's survival will surly be what wipes us out...

Re: The Clouds of Hiroshima

#25

Post by dylan604 »

defrost wrote: post #3
voidUpdate wrote: post #2

I think that everybody who supports the use of nuclear weapons should look at these pictures and listen to the experiences by the survivors of the blast about what it was actually like just afterwards and think critically about if any creature deserves to be subjected to that

Is it actually the case that deaths and injuries in H & N are distinctly worse than the deaths and injuries in the other 72 cities levelled by bombing in the few months prior to the H & N bombings? Before the dropping of the atomic bomb on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, there was the burning of Tokyo. Operation Meetinghouse, the early March 1945 raid on Tokyo that involved over 330 B-29s dropping incendiary bombs from low-a…

Those other cities sustained multiple bombing raids dropping multiple bombs. These cities suffered this damage from solitary bombs with little to no warning. This whataboutism isn't really even comparing the same things. Yes, losses from any war/battle/excursion is horrible, but this is cranking the knob to an 11 while all of the other damage was 0.5 on the same logarithmic scale

Re: The Clouds of Hiroshima

#26

Post by arjie »

Impressive photographs, especially the ones on the ground. It is no wonder that they capitulated soon after the second one. The statistical reality of the war must have been frightening but the visual impact must have been overwhelming. To stare up at a pillar of cloud representing an unprecedented form of destruction that ends cities in a single bomb. Terrifying.

Re: The Clouds of Hiroshima

#27

Post by [deleted] »

voidUpdate wrote: post #2

I think that everybody who supports the use of nuclear weapons should look at these pictures and listen to the experiences by the survivors of the blast about what it was actually like just afterwards and think critically about if any creature deserves to be subjected to that

[deleted]

Re: The Clouds of Hiroshima

#28

Post by tekla »

voidUpdate wrote: post #2

I think that everybody who supports the use of nuclear weapons should look at these pictures and listen to the experiences by the survivors of the blast about what it was actually like just afterwards and think critically about if any creature deserves to be subjected to that

I always wonder if people who make this argument would be against nuking Berlin or other major German cities if it would have stopped the European war much earlier.

Re: The Clouds of Hiroshima

#29

Post by actionfromafar »

arjie wrote: post #26

Impressive photographs, especially the ones on the ground. It is no wonder that they capitulated soon after the second one. The statistical reality of the war must have been frightening but the visual impact must have been overwhelming. To stare up at a pillar of cloud representing an unprecedented form of destruction that ends cities in a single bomb. Terrifying.

I've read somewhere that other factors were more important, such as the unpalatable prospect of surrendering to the USSR. Most cities in Japan were already firebombed when the atomic bombs fell. It's not like the people making the decision to surrender were at the scene?

Re: The Clouds of Hiroshima

#30

Post by chasil »

gonzalohm wrote: post #21
TacticalCoder wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It also prevented Russia, after having annihilated the nazis (from the east), from spanking Japan's ass and conquering Japan. The US killed two birds with two nukes: they prevented Japan from continuing their rampage and they prevented Russia from taking Japan.

Do you really think any European country was in shape to face Japan? Russia experienced a famine right after Germany capitulated, they almost lost Moscow, they received billions of dollars from the US to be able to finish the war. I think just trying to mobilize their troops to the east would have been unimaginable

Russia invaded and occupied the Sakhalin islands near the end of World War II. Native Japanese were allowed to leave, as I understand it.

"Japan invaded the northern parts of Sakhalin, and ruled the entire island from 1918 to 1925. Russia has held all of the island since seizing the Japanese portion in the final days of World War II in 1945, as well as all of the Kurils."

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sakhalin

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