Article

2003-11-10 Fifth Column

Enola Gay Flies into ~~History~~ Controversy

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Posted by Cyber Sarge (VRWC CA Chapter) 2003-11-10 12:29:26 PM|| || Front Page|| [11139 views since 2007-05-07] Top

#1 Let's send Japan a few planeloads of Korean "pleasure girl" survivors, some Chinese victims of chemical and biological weapons, and the few survivors of Bataan that are left alive. Personally, I'm sick of the peoples that started WWII acting like they were the victims.

Posted by Robert Crawford 2003-11-10 12:36:56 PM|| [http://www.kloognome.com] 2003-11-10 12:36:56 PM|| Front Page Top

#2 While they're at it, see if they can find one of the B-29s that took part in the firebombing raid on Tokyo in March 1945... same death toll (~100,000 killed). While we're on the subject, let me know when Japanese society begins to feel true remorse for Nanjing, Manchuria, and the other involuntary members of the Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere.

I'm glad we finished it when we did -- my father was scheduled for transshipment from the Europe to the Asian theater when the war ended -- I'd hate to have missed playing Doom for the first time...

Posted by snellenr 2003-11-10 12:46:31 PM|| 2003-11-10 12:46:31 PM|| Front Page Top

#3 The Enola Gay is an important part of history. Having that aircraft on display brings another dimension to understanding the war for people who want to know. At the RAF Museum in Hendon (north of London), there are numerous displays of V-1 and V-2 rockets and German aircraft. They also cost the British thousands of civilian casualties, but there they are, bigger than any history book.

Being revisionist about history and the Enola Gay just enables future generations of ignorance. My dad was with the 1st MarDiv on Okinawa at the time. He said that there were literally miles of rows of equipment staged for the invasion of Japan. Okinawa cost us thousands of casualties. The invasion of Kyushu was going to cost the Japanese and the Allies hundreds of thousands if not millions. The dropping of the two atomic bombs was the shock that finally moved the Japanese to surrender. Now we know how terrible those weapons are. The Enola Gay was part of that history, like it or not.

Posted by Alaska Paul 2003-11-10 12:48:17 PM|| 2003-11-10 12:48:17 PM|| Front Page Top

#4 This story fits nicely with the articles I've read lately about Germans boohooing about the firebombing of Dresden. Don't start sh*t you can't finish.

Posted by BH 2003-11-10 12:49:50 PM|| 2003-11-10 12:49:50 PM|| Front Page Top

#5 Sunao Tsuboi should be damn grateful for the atomic bomb: the alternative, a U.S. invasion of the Japanese mainland, would have ended up exterminating millions of Japanese, perhaps tens of millions.

The Bomb knocked some sense into Japan's militaristic leadership- and it is that leadership, not us, that Sunao Tsuboi ought to blame for what befell Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

Posted by Dave D. 2003-11-10 12:57:13 PM|| 2003-11-10 12:57:13 PM|| Front Page Top

#6 Cause and Effect, morons.

You attack somebody, you have no room to bitch when they kick your ass.

Posted by Laurence of the Rats 2003-11-10 1:08:16 PM|| 2003-11-10 1:08:16 PM|| Front Page Top

#7 The Filipinos cheered when they heard of the bomb.

Posted by buwaya 2003-11-10 1:16:37 PM|| 2003-11-10 1:16:37 PM|| Front Page Top

#8 "Attica" Tsuboi, bummer for you that Japanese people followed it's military and started it's war. My dad, US Army, was on a troop ship from Tacoma heading to Manilla when Japan attacked Pearl Harbor and the Philappines. Lucky for me his ship was diverted to Australia. How he loved to watch Auzie's march. Ya see Tsuboi, if he had set sell a few days earlier and made port in Manilla, I would, most likely, not have made it to this world. Batan Death March and all. Banzi Bro.

Posted by Lucky 2003-11-10 1:20:06 PM|| 2003-11-10 1:20:06 PM|| Front Page Top

#9 Screw these jerks. They've had their opinions aired, and that's it. Freedom of speech does not grant these people a "right" to provide some sort of response to a museum exhibit. Put the plane on display and be done with it.

Posted by Bomb-a-rama 2003-11-10 1:43:40 PM|| 2003-11-10 1:43:40 PM|| Front Page Top

#10 Oh..hell, why not placate every politically correct group? Has anyone here ever been to the Arizona Memorial, Pearl Harbor? I have several times and due to the large percentage of Japanese tourists that go there, the original movie/documentary as well as the exhibition that visitors are to see before being ferried over to the ship have all be sanitized to reflect almost zero (pardon the pun) responsibility behind the Japanese government's action.

Posted by jim 2003-11-10 1:51:55 PM|| 2003-11-10 1:51:55 PM|| Front Page Top

#11 Hey about condemning the Japanese efforts to nuke us!

http://www.fas.org/nuke/guide/japan/nuke/

Posted by Greg 2003-11-10 2:00:17 PM|| [http://www.fas.org/nuke/guide/japan/nuke/] 2003-11-10 2:00:17 PM|| Front Page Top

#12 My uncle died last Friday - he was also a Marine waiting for the invasion, having been through the rest of the South Pacific. Frankly his life was worth more than 230,000 Japanese IMHO

Posted by Frank G 2003-11-10 2:13:09 PM|| 2003-11-10 2:13:09 PM|| Front Page Top

#13 Jeebus. It was 58 years ago. Get over it already.

And next time, pick on somebody who can't kick your ass.

Posted by mojo 2003-11-10 2:23:27 PM|| 2003-11-10 2:23:27 PM|| Front Page Top

#14 "We donât want this just to be an argument about what happened in 1945 ... the first concern was about current US nuclear policy," Martin said.

-Ah yes, waste people's time w/an argument on one thing in order to further your ajenda on another.

I was stationed on Okinawa for 4 months and on mainland Japan for 2 months. I don't feel the least bit bad we dropped two big-ones on them. An invasion of the mainland would've cost us a million men and a 10 year land war (that's U.S. mil historian estimates based on Japanese defenses on their island in '45). It would've also cost the Japanese millions of other deaths due to seppuku and hari-kari suicides when eventually "embarassed them" by taking their homeland. F*ck peace action and the horse they rode in on. Save your belly-aching for someone who cares - pussies. F*ck the mayor of Hiroshima to. Don't like nukes? Then don't act like such an asshole that we have to use them on you. Won't matter in about 10 years anyways because most of the survivors will be gone. Get over it you bunch of b*tches. If they had the bomb in '41 they wouldn't of hesitated to drop it on us from the get go. This 'gaijin' laughs at you. The more terrible war is, the quicker its over according to WTS.

Posted by Jarhead 2003-11-10 2:51:24 PM|| 2003-11-10 2:51:24 PM|| Front Page Top

#15 The bomb saved American lives. Of course. It also saved millions of Japanese lives: given the habit of Japanese military to suicide in verge of defeat and force Japanese civilians to suicide, the Americans estimated thare would be ten million Japanese dead. Finally, the bleeding heart liberals seem to forget (or perhaps they don't care) that the Japanese Army was killing about 250,000 Chinese and Filipinos a month
so if the bomb shortened the war by a mere month then the number of Chinese spared exceeds the number of Japanese killed. It is a pity that Nagasaki was one of the cities bombed since it was predominantly Catholic and its population didn't share the agressive and genocidal nationalism of the Shinto regions. But see above.

Posted by JFM 2003-11-10 2:54:03 PM|| 2003-11-10 2:54:03 PM|| Front Page Top

#16 hey Jarhead, Happy Birthday!

Posted by BH 2003-11-10 2:56:16 PM|| 2003-11-10 2:56:16 PM|| Front Page Top

#17 AP, re. the Imperial War Museum exhibits at Duxford â thereâs also one of each of the V-weapons on display in the atrium of the main IWM in Lambeth, London proper, along with a small number of other aircraft, vehicles, guns and even a sub or two! I spent most of the day there on Thursday, and spent the majority of that time in a new holocaust exhibition they have upstairs. If anyoneâs going to London: that exhibitionâs a definite must-see (but children under a certain age won't be permitted to enter). Itâs far and away the most affecting exhibition Iâve ever been to.

Museums aren't there to show what's palatable - they're repositories for what's been important. Pull the Enola Gay because it's "controversial" and there's no end to what horrors the sensitive public will have to be 'protected' from.

Posted by Bulldog 2003-11-10 3:01:26 PM|| 2003-11-10 3:01:26 PM|| Front Page Top

#18 We should do this just as seen as Japan makes an offical apology and reparations to the [comfort] women it forced into sexual slavery and the descentants of the Chinese, Filipinos, Koreans, etc... the Imperial Japanese murdered during the war, and the Death March victims and their descentants....

Posted by CrazyFool 2003-11-10 3:27:05 PM|| 2003-11-10 3:27:05 PM|| Front Page Top

#19 Jarhead

A couple of days ago you asked me a question I didn't see until after rantburg had warpped over. If you are still interested (or for future cases) send me your e-mail address

Regards

Posted by JFM 2003-11-10 3:39:12 PM|| 2003-11-10 3:39:12 PM|| Front Page Top

#20 The atomic bombs saved millions of Japanese lives, as well. Check out the death toll from the firebombing of Tokyo - far higher than from both atomic bombs together (one raid destroyed 16 square miles of the city, and caused 185,000 deaths. No mention of other casualties). Without the atomic bombs, we would have continued to use firebomb raids on Japanese cities until none were left. The Japanese should be thankful we ended the war when we did, before even more of their nation was turned to cinders.

Posted by Old Patriot 2003-11-10 3:43:26 PM|| [http://users.codenet.net/mweather/default.htm] 2003-11-10 3:43:26 PM|| Front Page Top

#21 Anyone who is interested in the point about the lives saved should take a look a Downfall by Richard B. Frank, which is a masterpiece of history. It especially crushes the argument that the Japanese government was about to surrender.

Posted by Matt 2003-11-10 3:50:03 PM|| 2003-11-10 3:50:03 PM|| Front Page Top

#22 The father of my best friend was a gunner on an Avenger torpedo plane flying from an escort carrier in the Pacific in mid-1945. My friend, quite the liberal actually, tells his own children the following:

"You're alive because I'm alive.

I'm alive because your grandfather is alive.

And he's alive because Harry Truman dropped the bomb."

Posted by Steve White 2003-11-10 3:57:21 PM|| 2003-11-10 3:57:21 PM|| Front Page Top

#23 At the end of the war B-29s were used to drop thousands of shallow water mines throughout the home islands. Imports of food were next to impossible. Japan was saved from starvation.

BTW Jarhead. Happy B-Day... Regimental Night?

Posted by Shipman 2003-11-10 4:06:52 PM|| 2003-11-10 4:06:52 PM|| Front Page Top

#24 "Activists are not opposed to the aircraft going on display, but want to see it presented in the context of the raid in the dying days of World War II."

Dying days of World War II? That would have been an appropriate name for the period of time around a U.S. invasion of the Japanese mainland.

There's also this:

"They also hope to stir debate about the tens of thousands of warheads in the current US nuclear stockpile and plans for mobile, battlefield nuclear devices."

I am not up on the numbers of warheads in the U.S. stockpile, but I'd bet it's a lot fewer than "tens of thousands."

Posted by Tibor 2003-11-10 4:28:34 PM|| 2003-11-10 4:28:34 PM|| Front Page Top

#25 BH & Shipman, thanx. It is indeed a happy B-Day! We had our USMC Ball over the weekend. We had today off. I actually have to go to my MBA night class tonight - freakin' bummer. However, afterwards I will prolly drink a 6-pack of PBR, toast Chesty Puller wherever he is, then watch my old version of the D.I. with Jack Webb.

"228 years of rompin', stompin' death, my father was the devil and my mother was an M-16, I was conceived in a trench and born in a bomb crater, I eat barb wire and piss napalm, I am a minister of death, every night I pray for war...." (or something like that) ;)

Posted by Jarhead 2003-11-10 5:02:06 PM|| 2003-11-10 5:02:06 PM|| Front Page Top

#26 JFM, copy your last, & thanx. I will see if Fred can send you my home email address. If not, I'll just post it next time.

Posted by Jarhead 2003-11-10 5:05:32 PM|| 2003-11-10 5:05:32 PM|| Front Page Top

#27 1. One account I recently read (can't find the cite) says 80,000 killed at Hiroshima, 40,000 at Nagasaki. I think this was estimates of initial effects.

2. Here is an article giving some numbers for immediate and 5-year death tallies.

3. Japanese still count those people who pass away today as "victims of the atomic bombs". Reference this article from 2003.

4. Interesting letter to the Smithsonian
in 1994, in the context of the previous controversy over the Enola Gay exhibit, which excoriated the US and glossed over Japanese culpability in the War which of course led to the bombing.

Posted by Carl in N.H. 2003-11-10 5:26:22 PM|| 2003-11-10 5:26:22 PM|| Front Page Top

#28 Hiroshima - 40,000
Nagasaki - 80,000

Bringing the war to an abrupt and decisive end - Priceless

Posted by BH 2003-11-10 5:37:28 PM|| 2003-11-10 5:37:28 PM|| Front Page Top

#29 Sorry, got those numbers backwards.

Posted by BH 2003-11-10 5:38:00 PM|| 2003-11-10 5:38:00 PM|| Front Page Top

#30 Last night I was watching a rerun of the Longest Day. In it one of the characters made a statement to the effect that "they were in an operation that would be talked about long after all the partipants were dead and buried."

In reading what is available about the intended invasion of Japan I cannot help but think that if it had happened the aftermath would have been so terrible that D-Day would hardly be a blip on the map of history.

BH, backwords or farwards, amen to to your observation.

Posted by Michael 2003-11-10 6:00:30 PM|| 2003-11-10 6:00:30 PM|| Front Page Top

#31 Chesty Puller wherever he is

You don't know where he is? New assignment:
Commander of God's Bodyguard. :)

Posted by Shipman 2003-11-10 6:18:09 PM|| 2003-11-10 6:18:09 PM|| Front Page Top

#32 Hey, in lieu of the Enola Gay being put on display, we could present the Japanese with the (open) containers of mustard gas they left behind in China.

Posted by Bill 2003-11-10 6:23:24 PM|| 2003-11-10 6:23:24 PM|| Front Page Top

#33 New assignment: Commander of God's Bodyguard. :)

What does God need with a ~~starship~~ bodyguard?

Sorry, couldn't resist.....

Posted by CrazyFool 2003-11-10 11:16:22 PM|| 2003-11-10 11:16:22 PM|| Front Page Top

#34 See "Views of American Military Leaders on the Atomic Bombings of Japan" for more info.

Posted by Anonymous 2003-11-16 5:56:52 PM|| 2003-11-16 5:56:52 PM|| Front Page Top

17:56 Anonymous
10:28 Bomb-a-rama
10:12 Bomb-a-rama
00:36 Old Patriot
00:32 Old Patriot
23:58 Atomic Conspiracy
23:49 snellenr
23:30 Old Patriot
23:21 Atomic Conspiracy
23:18 Jarhead
23:16 CrazyFool
23:09 Old Patriot
23:07 Pappy
22:42 Grunter
22:36 Frank G
22:28 badanov
22:15 Dan Darling
22:08 Old Patriot
22:00 Alaska Paul
21:57 Matt
21:54 Alaska Paul
21:48 Old Patriot
21:39 Frank G
21:33 Frank G