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GKC
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If no one helped him jump, then one assumes an accident or suicide. Either way he wasn’t mysteriously found dead. That’s to be expected when you hit the ground from high enough up.
GKC
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GKC
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bobzills
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I believe that this is irrelevant to the discussion of the Atomic Bomb in WWII. It really has nothing to do with it. Israel may have the A-Bomb, but in any case, the Protocols of the Elders of Zion is a forgery and it has been proven to be such. It is anti-semitism.
All of this really does not speak to the moral question of targetting innocent civilians as a way of pressuring an enemy to surrender. This is immoral and against the Law of God according to my understanding of Catholic priniciples and really nothing you have posted here, such as the protocols of the elders of zion, or the alleged worship of Mary by Catholics would lead me to change my mind. All of that is basically irrelevant to the moral question which has been raised.
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stevegravy
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And I would bet they were better fish eaters than you
Now if you think your holier: Well I guess we will have to wait for the next life to find out. But you need to know, not a one of them deliberately targeted civilians! Why do you accuse them of doing so? You privy to something I am not aware of? I never remember you being in the room whenever a conversation happened. Maybe you think you can read the mind of the dead? My point to you and all the other holier than thou types, these gentleman lived through the war did their service and came home thrilled to be alive and grateful to God for preserving them. If it meant using the bomb that was too bad for the Japanese. I don’t really care what arm chair theoreticians opinions are. The fact remains survival is very important. If someone disagrees, I would suggest you get off the high horse and submit yourself to the Chinese for one of their prisoners of conscience. These men whom you accuse of killing civilians, when they we barely out of their teens faced death. And it was very real to them. They saw it up close and personal and knew what was ahead of them if they had to invaded the home islands. I am not sure you can get your head around that because all you can quote is a bunch of empty phrases over and over again. Phases that when lead is flying don’t mean a thing and protects you from nothing. And also know this they knew what was moral land what wasn’t they knew what murder was and killing was not murder.Yes everything must be surrendered to God but, the opinion of men, in the heat of battle (remember the Saints and Popes et cetera are just men) don’t count anymore then the opinions of the meanest trash collector. You do what you think is best and let God sort the rest of it out. Unless you think you can speak for God. I tried to relate the impressions of the men, who at the time were mostly boys, expressed late at night after a few adult beverages. Regardless of the worlds opinion of them they were not mean, they felt lucky and were grateful to be alive. If you don’t like it too bad for you.
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JimG
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Not that he would have recognzed a theolgian if he met one, but this reminds me of a former parishioner who had worked at the local VA regional office as head of a service organization for former POW’s. I knew he was a WW-II veteran, and because of the position he held, that he had been a prisoner of war. But he never talked about the war, not in his office, not at home, not at church, not socially, not politically. He was quite taciturn. (He married a loquacious German woman, so maybe he was out of practice!) After returning from the war with his new wife, he was so industrious that he got a job, bought a house, but couldn’t afford a car, so he walked over an hour each way to work
But I happened to be around when he retired, and as was the custom, they had a gathering for him with cake and punch. Some retirees say a few words on these occasion, most do not. I didn’t expect him to, but just stopped by to celebrate his retirement. I was astonished when he got the floor and started to recount some of his war history.
Turns out he had been in the Bataan death march, followed by time as a prisoner of war. After the horror stories, he praised “his hero” Harry Truman, who had brought the war to an end with the use of the atomic bombs, and for this he was and remained forever grateful to Truman.
After returning to my office I mentioned to a coworker that I had gone to Mr. H’s retirement. “How was it?” he asked. “Well,” I replied, he praised Harry Truman highly for dropping the A-bomb.” “Darn it,” he said, “I always miss out on the good ones.”
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bobzills
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People here seem to be bringing up a lot of irrelevant issues. Whether someone is a good or bad fisheater, whether one agrees the the Protocols of the elders of zion, whether or not one worships Mary? These are all ireelevant to the issue at hand that according to Catholic prinicples it is immoral to target amd kill innocent civilians in order to pressure an enemy government to surrender and thereby possibly save lives.
I am not buying into the killing of civilians in order to save someone else’s life. Such a thing is against God’s Law.
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JimG
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So I think you are saying that the conduct of WW-II must have been far more immoral than the conduct of subsequent wars. How is then that the antiwar movement is only now so vocal?
Also the point was made above by stevegray that “kill as many innocent civilians as possible” was never a standing order by any Allied commander. Soldiers and sailors and airman and marines had specific missions to carry out, and specific objectives to accomplish, none of which were preceded with a directive to aim for innocent civilians. Even with Hiroshima, the target was the city, not its occupants (actually the aiming point was a specific bridge.) And as others have mentioned, thousands of leaflets were dropped to warn residents. Should every commander have had a moral theologian at his side to assist in these decisions? Somehow I doubt that it would have helped. Even moral theologians, when being shot at, might not make every decision correctly.
Ike had prepared a statement accepting full responsibility for the disastrous failure of the Norman invasion, intending to use it if need be. Turned out that memo was not needed, but it was never a sure thing. Things are sometimes not as clear cut as they may seem.
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stevegravy
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I believe my father and uncles would agree with this and never did deliberately shot civilians. Remember, all of my relatives were civilians, (although a couple would volunteer), the majority were conscripted into the military and put into uniforms. I believe what this did, was give these conscripted civilians legal permission to execute the orders of their officers which entailed sometimes attacking and killing designated enemies and destroying enemy targets which were military assets or things that could be military assets.
On the theoretical side in a national war of survival no one has yet offered a clear way to keep “innocent civilians” out of harms way when the enemies assets are buried inside built up areas. If the enemy doesn’t want their civilians harmed it seems to me the onus is on them to either remove the civilians or remove the military assets.
Lastly, yes Japan had a peace party that was very suppressed and had no political power to change or even influence the conduct of the Japanese government My understanding from readings the war party had committed acts of political assassination prior to and during the war whenever there was opposition to their interest. Defeatism was a mortal disease to catch. The war party had to be brought to their knees one way or the other.
Ergo the less objectionable way is the one with the least amount of death and carnage
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Al_Masetti
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Unfortunately for your point of view, all the actual facts contradict the notion that Japan was looking for a way to surrender.
If Japan wanted to end the war, all they had to do was to stop fighting.
Stand down their navy and recall their army from China and Indo China and Burma.
OR, alternatively, they could have released all the prisoners that they captured.
Instead Japan made every battle as bloody as possible.
In the Philippines, Japan did not have to punish that country and fight to the last man. But they did.
And the same goes for every other battle. And each successive battle was bloodier than the one before. So we learned how Japan intended to fight from the battles at Iwo Jima and Okinawa.
And after the war, if the Japanese had been interested in surrender, there would have been an outpouring of protest literature … “hey, Americans, we were trying to surrender.” … but there was none of that.
The link you posted is a mish mash of truth and wild assumptions.
There is no question that the Soviet Union had infiltrated the U.S. Government with Communist agents … hundreds of them … and many in very influential positions. They made and influenced decisions that were favorable in the extreme to the spread and extension of International Communism … the goals of the Comintern.
No question about that.
Anyone questioning that or even remotely curious need only Google the word “venona”.
And if anyone still does not understand the significance of the word “venona”, please just post here a request for an explanation. It is relevant to this discussion. There are many books on the subject.
However, the idea that Japan wanted to surrender has no merit and to successfully blame a variety of conspiracies for the continued fighting would mean that Japan was also in on the conspiracy … and that’s not very likely.
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GKC
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I do have my doubts about gettting you to see the point. The site you link to is a load of codswallop, down to the syllables. And antisemitic to boot. And you link to it to prove a false historical point. As a vehement anti-RC will link to Jack Chick, or cite Hislop, or Boettner, or point to James White as proving their point. You, in this context, are doing the same. It’s embarassing.
My point then, is referring to RCs worshipping Mary, or “the Death Cookie”, is that you can google up any number of sites that make those assertions about the RCC. And they are a load of codswallop, too.
And, as I have to repeat, your understanding of thr RC position on the morality of the bombs is not what I address. Whatever the RCC teaches you should affirm. I do address your total lack of knowledge about what happened in the last year of WWII, in the Pacific. As I said before, I doubt I can help you on this, the deficit is too profound. However, if you do continue to post historical nonsense, I’ll correct it, just out of basic principles.
Let me guess. You’ve never read any book on this topic, have you?
Or on the Pacific War generally?
GKC
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GKC
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I’m very familiar with venona. And as one who cut my teeth on Chambers’ WITNESS, I have no doubt about the Communist presence, infiltrating the governement, during the period. But you’ll not find any suggestion in the publsihed material that Marshall was a concious agent of the Communists, who delivered mainland China over. This is cloud-cuckoo land.
In fact, Japan (meaning the power structure in the committee) was interested in ending the war by this time. What they were not interested in was a surrender.
The home defense structure and plan the Japanese were going to use for defense of the home islands was vindicated, in their eyes, by what happened on Okinawa (technically a home island itself). It was seen as a victroy by the Japanese, as indicating the degree to which they could increase US casualties, when the major invasion took place. Which, in their eyes, would lead to a negotiated settlement including the four demands that the hardliners were insisting upon. See Feifer’s TENNOZAN.
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GKC
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I thank you, sir, both for the compliment and for your restraint. Even her initials are grating on the nerves.
GKC
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Appleby
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My Daddy and six of his brothers survived World War II because we dropped those bombs on Japan. They were all in the Services and were scheduled to be shipped from Europe after VE Day to participate in the land war in Japan. Since there are 79 million Baby Boomers, even if you only count the ones that were born between 1945 and 1958 (as should be counted), that’s a sizeable number of us who would have never been born if the USA had not dropped those bombs.
Since Daddy is Jewish, they had already lost a sizeable portion of our family in the Holocaust before that. Not dropping the bombs could have meant that our family line might have been exterminated completely.
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Al_Masetti
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Just got a book in the mail: “First Into Nagasaki” by George Weller.
Subtitled: The Censored Eyewitness Dispatches on Post-
Atomic Japan and Its Prisoners of War.
amazon.com/First-Into-Nagasaki-Eyewitness-Post-Atomic/dp/0307342018
Extremely interesting. And relevant to the discussions on this thread.
As I get further into the book, I will post further. But it debunks a lot of what passes for convention wisdom on nuclear weapons effects.
By the way, I also was at the library and got “Retribution” by Max Hastings. Extremely interesting and relevant to the discussions on this thread.
amazon.com/Retribution-Battle-1944-45-Max-Hastings/dp/0307263517
Subtitled: The Censored Eyewitness Dispatches on Post-
Atomic Japan and Its Prisoners of War.
amazon.com/First-Into-Nagasaki-Eyewitness-Post-Atomic/dp/0307342018
Extremely interesting. And relevant to the discussions on this thread.
As I get further into the book, I will post further. But it debunks a lot of what passes for convention wisdom on nuclear weapons effects.
By the way, I also was at the library and got “Retribution” by Max Hastings. Extremely interesting and relevant to the discussions on this thread.
amazon.com/Retribution-Battle-1944-45-Max-Hastings/dp/0307263517
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Appleby
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Having lost a significant number of family members in the Holocaust, and having researched and heard the stories myself, (not to mention such excellent video collections as Shoah, I think this is a very good summary of what the victims of Hitler and Tojo and their ilk believe. I have a second cousin who survived the Bataan Death March. He was featured on the recent program on PBS about World War II. Daddy has photographs of the concentration camp he helped to liberate, smuggled out totally against orders. Daddy is a Jew and he told us that he knows one day when all those who saw for themselves are dead, people will start saying it never happened at all…and that the Jews were in no danger and we should hve stayed home and spent our money on socialist medicine for slum children or something.
I think it is easy for people who have no experience of war in their own countries, or in their own families, and no near family history to consult from people who are still alive, to counsel that we hide under the bed, put our fingers in our ears, and pretend that what happens outside that little space has nothing to do with us. And sixty years on, it is easy, very easy for twenty and thirty-somethings who have no clue on earth what happened, why or to whom, to second-guess the people who were there.
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Appleby
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Oh, and to bring it a little bit up to date, I have a sister who rioted and protested against the Vietnam War in the Sixties and who argued that if we surrendered and ran away, nothing bad would happen.
She has since visited Laos and Cambodia and seen the mass graves and talked to those who survived the Killing Fields. She now understands and does penance for the great evil she helped to perpetrate and will probably spend considerable time in Purgatory as a result.
She has since visited Laos and Cambodia and seen the mass graves and talked to those who survived the Killing Fields. She now understands and does penance for the great evil she helped to perpetrate and will probably spend considerable time in Purgatory as a result.
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Al_Masetti
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If you read Winston Churchill’s books about WWII, you will learn that Britain was just about bankrupted by the time the United States entered the war. If only Hitler had not declared war on the United States, he would have been able to force England to capitulate because they would have had no food and no gasoline or oil and would have been unable to continue.
If you visit Roosevelt Roads Naval Air Station in Puerto Rico, you will find facilities that were built there for the British government-in-exile. A few more months of starvation conditions and the British leadership, the monarchy, and the British fleet would have been forced to leave Britain and live as a guest of the United States.
The U.S. built an airplane called the B-36 … a huge airplane with (ultimately) ten engines … for the purpose, if needed, of bombing Germany from the continental United States.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Convair_B-36
pages.nyu.edu/~jh15/b-36.html
The U.S. produced 365 of the B-36’s in various versions. There are still a few B-36’s left; the Air Force Museum at Wright Patterson AFB, near Dayton, Ohio has one. Go see it.
The atomic bomb was originally intended for use against Germany.
My idea has always been that if Hitler had made one fewer mistake or if the Allies had made one more mistake, the war would have gone the other way.
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Al_Masetti
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I got to reading about the B-36 and found this memoir Web page.
Most folks are unaware today that this ten-engine bomber even existed.
But its original job would have been to deliver a nuclear weapon to Germany during a protracted WW2.
zianet.com/tmorris/b36.html
This and related Web sites describe the sorts of missions and mission planning that had to be conducted during the 1940’s and 1950’s.
It is illustrative of the conditions of that time period. The B-36 had a wingspan greater than that of a Boeing 747. But the technology was WW2 technology.
Until about mid-1943, no one had any confidence at all in the outcome of WW2.
If you watch the movie “Casablanca” set in late 1942 … it ended with a big unknown.
And here is a bunch of transcripts of oral histories about the atomic bomb.
pbs.org/wgbh/amex/bomb/filmmore/reference/interview/index.html
Most folks are unaware today that this ten-engine bomber even existed.
But its original job would have been to deliver a nuclear weapon to Germany during a protracted WW2.
zianet.com/tmorris/b36.html
This and related Web sites describe the sorts of missions and mission planning that had to be conducted during the 1940’s and 1950’s.
It is illustrative of the conditions of that time period. The B-36 had a wingspan greater than that of a Boeing 747. But the technology was WW2 technology.
Until about mid-1943, no one had any confidence at all in the outcome of WW2.
If you watch the movie “Casablanca” set in late 1942 … it ended with a big unknown.
And here is a bunch of transcripts of oral histories about the atomic bomb.
pbs.org/wgbh/amex/bomb/filmmore/reference/interview/index.html
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RWMorris
Guest
My father was a flight engineer on RB-36 Recon Missions over Korea in 1950 & 1951.
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Al_Masetti
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Wow! Some versions were lightened up and could reach 60,000 feet (according to the Web pages).
And the Web sites also said that the B-36 was not used over Korea, although they did not speak about the RB version.
Did your dad tell you any stories of his experiences?
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