No, I tend to empathize with the victims inside the gas chambers, not virtually putting myself in the control tower in charge of the Zyklon B button. We slaughtered civilians, purposefully targeted civilians, as a means to victory, using the Bomb to end all bombs. Twice. (That we also firebombed Tokyo and Dresden and countless other cities does not excuse the targeting of civilians.) Whether it saved lives or not, it is a stain on our nation's history. Happy New Year to you as well.
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Not that I have a strong take on the should have / should not have debate (which is useless since we can't run a parallel earth experiment to see how the invasion and/or negotiation of/with Japan would have gone), BUT... Having read a lot of survivors stories from both Hiroshima and Nagasaki, I've never seen one that mentioned this "fliers" thing. I'm not saying it didn't happen -- I'd just like more info!
I've always read and heard that we dropped warning leaflets: Edit: This is the warning to Nagasaki _______ Leaflets dropped on cities in Japan warning civilians about the atomic bomb, dropped c. August 6, 1945 TO THE JAPANESE PEOPLE: America asks that you take immediate heed of what we say on this leaflet. We are in possession of the most destructive explosive ever devised by man. A single one of our newly developed atomic bombs is actually the equivalent in explosive power to what 2000 of our giant B-29s can carry on a single mission. This awful fact is one for you to ponder and we solemnly assure you it is grimly accurate. We have just begun to use this weapon against your homeland. If you still have any doubt, make inquiry as to what happened to Hiroshima when just one atomic bomb fell on that city. Before using this bomb to destroy every resource of the military by which they are prolonging this useless war, we ask that you now petition the Emperor to end the war. Our president has outlined for you the thirteen consequences of an honorable surrender. We urge that you accept these consequences and begin the work of building a new, better and peace-loving Japan. You should take steps now to cease military resistance. Otherwise, we shall resolutely employ this bomb and all our other superior weapons to promptly and forcefully end the war. EVACUATE YOUR CITIES. link
about as dumb as Germany making 'Mein Kampf' contraband. you probably think the Alamo is offensive to Texas too. Maybe we should just ban Call of Duty and Medal of Honor games? seriously aghast, I have my issues with the US military and it's wretched history, but you are just trolling, I never intended to imply that this 360 virtual photgraph was intended to be a fantasy land of mass murder, just as an interesting look at a piece of history. thanks for making this thread a political device you knob.
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My objection is not with you, Landry, but with the exhibit itself. You allude to what I find disquieting: I don't think the Enola Gay should be the setting for a first person shooter. And the idea of putting someone behind the controls through the internet/power of technology is to inevitably draw that conclusion, is to literally put the viewer in the driver's seat. I have a terrible time justifying the purposeful annihilation of civilians. (Especially when you do it again three days later, before anyone had the time to realize the consequences of this awesome weapon.) But even if one feels it was necessary, the decision to use the atomic bomb is is to be struck up to the horrors of war, to the awful depths to which mankind will sink in times of conflict. It is something forever to be decried; it is not something to be celebrated. There's a fine line between documenting an artifact of history and taking a stand on its righteousness. And making the cockpit into a freakin' video game, to me, strikes me as definitely crossing that line.
well, I still think you are being a tad sensitive. Auschwitz draws thousands of people a year. Even though we all know it was a terrible part of history, it's still a part of history.
The Enola Gay happened to be being exhibited at the Smithsonian when I was in DC several years ago. This was pre-9/11, and I remember that security was really tight for the exhibit. They were really concerned someone might try to blow up the plane or use it to make some kind of "statement." The plane itself was... a plane. It was impossible not to wonder what you might feel when you finally got through the line and saw it, but for me... it was an object so out of context inside a crowded building like that. It was just an old plane, only part of one, really. Not the most emotionally impactful museum experience, but it certainly gets you thinking. As for objections to the exhibit, it's freaking history! It's part of the proof that these bombings happened. It's a vital part of remembering what happened, why it happened, and what the aftermath was, because no one can see the Enola Gay with their own eyes and credibly claim that atomic war is a fairy tale.
Thanks much. So it's consistent with what I've read: the citizens weren't given any actionable information. Such as: "get the **** out of your city tomorrow or you will perish." The warning there would just sound like more propaganda, if I were a Japanese citizen who could read French. Moreover, much like the moon landings were faked, I now believe that the atomic bomb detonations were faked also. "Enola Gay" means "Fake ****ing Plane" in Swahili.
I don't think this is about celebrating the event but studying it as part of history. To me I would be just as interested in seeing the cockpit of a Luftwaffe plane without being an endorsement of Nazi Germany.
The link isn't a video game. It is just a virtual tour of the cockpit. The point of view isn't even from one of the seats but if you were standing in between the pilot and copilot seat.
It's a cool piece of history, but it'll grow more controversial as time passes. It's like having the rifle(s???) that shot jfk or the gun that axed Lincoln. A tool.
I'd enjoy seeing the Enola Gay, as much to tour an actual B-29 as for seeing the first aircraft to drop an atomic weapon. I'm part of the "What did your father do during the war?" generation. The war was a constant topic of conversation when I was growing up. Almost every friend I had was the son or daughter of a WWII vet (and many also vets of Korea, like my uncle, who was in both conflicts). At the Nimitz Museum in Fredericksburg, they have something I thought remarkable, at least the last time I was there. They have a B-25 medium bomber, which was the type of bomber my father was in when he was shot down in the Pacific in 1944, and a PT boat, similar to one that rescued him and the rest of the survivors. That's an amazing thing for a son to be able to view in one place. As it stands, what happened happened, and we can't change that, or any of the other decisions that were made during the course of a war the United States was very reluctantly drawn into. Truman dropping two atomic weapons on Japan? I have mixed feelings about it. On the one hand, the deaths and injuries to civilians were terrible. We killed and injured far more using conventional bombing against Japan, so the difference is one of semantics, IMO. If you're killed by an atomic weapon or a 500 pound bomb, you're still dead. If you have a limb blown off or are terribly burned, it could have been the result of either method of warfare. The main difference, in my opinion, is the effect of radiation and we knew little of consequence about the long term effects on people when the bombings occured. It was a huge relief to the hundreds of thousands of Americans who would have been involved in the invasion of the Japanese home islands and saved countless American lives. Because of that, I think Truman felt it was the only reasonable course of action and I tend to agree. He could have dropped one where it would have been seen, in a demonstration of their power, and that might have been a better decision, but we only had two and they were still filled with unknowns. What if we'd dropped one for a demonstration and it didn't go off? That was probably part of the equation. War is horrific, whether it was being bombed in WWII, or being bombed, shot, or blown up in Iraq or Afghanistan. It is one of the reasons why you should never go to war unless there is an imminent danger to our national security and no other option. The case in Afghanistan and decidedly not the case in Iraq, in my opinion. This is Hangout, so I'll leave the rest of those kinds of opinions aside.
