A-BOMB   -- May 8, 2015

A hand out listed aspects of modern life that would go away and a slow moving one-hour video describing all the " what if's " of how a nuclear explosion might take place. Most significant was a human error and a call for destruction of all nuclear weapons. Yea, sure. There has not been a world war in 70 years thanks to Mutually Assured Destruction. The presentation did not differentiate between atomic and hydrogen bombs.
Frankly I am not worried about it.
1. If it were so easy then why is Iran 2-years from having a bomb and has been for over a decade.
2. It is so much easier to accomplish the destruction of the nation by attack on the internet.
3. A single bomb exploded at hight altitude would destroy all electronics, not need for hundreds of missiles.

In anticipation of a typical attack on the U.S. decision to use the first A-Bomb, the following handout was prepared.
It was not needed because the class has people old enough to agree the war had to be ended.
Here it is, anyway.

Friday Roundtable     A-BOMB     May 8, 2015    

The Manhattan Project was to build an atomic weapon before Germany did. It was completed too late for use on Germany, but not too late to end the war in the Pacific.

Was that fair to Japan? Are you interested in Japan's atomic bomb program? It was initiated in April 1941 (before Pearl Harbor) . As was customary in Japan, the Army and Navy had rival programs. They Navy lost interest in 1943 when they determined the creation of a bomb could not be completed in time to contribute the war effort. That decision was the same as Nazi high command.
    The Japanese Army program ended 12 August 1945 (after Hiroshima) at their research site North Korea, where a test was conducted and all facilities and notes destroyed to prevent falling into Russian hands. Read about it on website www.ww2pacific.com/japnuc.html
    By the way. On 24 March 2014, Japan agreed to turn over more than 700 pounds of weapons grade plutonium and highly enriched uranium to the United States.

Would Japan have failed to use the bomb? if they could have completed it? Note, this week is the 70 anniversary of the death of five children and their Sunday school teacher in Lakeview, Oregon, May 5, 1945, by balloon bomb. Remains of four of these terror weapons have been discovered in Iowa of 9,000 were launched across the Pacific. http://www.ww2pacific.com/balloon.html

Did the use of the Atomic bomb cost lives? In the short term, of course. Ultimately, the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki saved lives; probably millions of them.
    The United State air force was launching 400 plane B-29 raids against Japan twice a week. The effects of the A-bomb was the equivalent of four such conventional bombing raids. The same effect could have been achieved in two weeks. The point of interest is of only one plane, where as we typically lost 30 bombers and their crews. The shock value to the emperor was to move him to accept that the war was lost. In his words, "We must bear the unbearable.".

Saved lives. Besides the 2,640 air crewmen who survived; the saving by shortening the war in inestimable throughout the Pacific (air, sea, land) and in China, and of an ongoing war the rest of the world, including America. The invasion of south island, Kyushu, scheduled for November and of Tokyo scheduled for March'46 is estimated as one-half million U.S. casualties. Using past ratios, that would be half million Japanese military deaths. Plus a greater number of civilian death as participants and collateral damage. Japan promised to murder 300,00 white POWs (as they had on Philippines and other Pacific islands.) If the invasion of Japan had gone forth, the plan was to destroy every industrial feature of Japan and turn the islands of Japan into one big pasture land.

Civilian deaths. I have plotted the increasing rate of deaths throughout the war. London blitz, Hamburg firestorm, Nuremberg subjected to 48 hours of bombing, by U.S. by day, continued at night by RAF. The initial fire bombing of Tokyo, Mar 9-10 by 279 B-29's, burned 25% of the city in one night and killed more than at either Hiroshima or Nagasaki.

Radiation. Uranium is a footnote of history that perpetuates the radiation story, one of the big myths of popular history. Uranium is a dirty weapon, that is radiation is spread over a wide area causing a painful lingering death. There has been one uranium bomb of all time. Plutonium was discovered early in the Manhattan Project. It is safer to work with and all subsequent A-bombs have been of plutonium. Yet, radiation receives all the attention.

Inflation of numbers. Include all deaths in the area of Hiroshima. People were weakened by starvation and unable to recover as if they would have had they been physically fit. Living in the open after their bamboo homes were blown away, a typhoon provided the final straw to weakened, injured, now exposed peoples. Medical care was slow, inadequate, and unsure how to proceed. Numbers are exaggerated by those seeking to show how terrible a weapon it was.

Clean weapons. A "clean bomb", pay attention now, will kill by explosion to a far greater radius than localized radiation. Nice, clean, conventional, wartime death.
    Ask yourself what difference is there if one bleeds to death from shrapnel, or burns to a painful death by napalm, or has ones body blown apart by explosion, or is drowned when a ship is sunk? War is bad and its weapons kill and maim. Including arrow, spear and sword.
 

---

URL : http://www.manorweb.com/creative/2015/abomb.html
Last updated : May 8, 2015
Back to : Creative Retirement Menu