At 8:15 AM (Hiroshima time), Tom Feerebee, in the plane "Enola Gay," dropped a gravity/fission bomb -- "Little Boy" -- over Hiroshima, Japan. Forty-five seconds after being released, it detonated 600 meters above the city. More than 98,000 people died; the city burned for six hours.
“Since Auschwitz we know what man is capable of. And since Hiroshima we know what is at stake.”
-- Viktor Frankel
Thanks to that bomb, my Son-in-law's father returned home. He was scheduled for the invasion of the Japanese home islands after surviving Okinawa.
ReplyDeleteWithout that bomb, it's unlikely by three grandkids would exist.
My Dad was with the Navy, carrying Marines to Japan. My Uncle had finished his quota as bombardier in a B17 over Europe and was in traing to get in a B29. And a guy I worked for while in college was among the army troops that stayed in Japan after the war - and told me what the Japanese had waiting for us. None of the three had any doubts about the atomic bombs.
ReplyDeleteAnd it is estimated that 1,000,000 Marines, Soldiers, Sailors and Airmen were able to come home, and untold numbers of Japanese on the mainland did not die in a fruitless defense of the "homeland"...
ReplyDeleteKeep in mind that the USAAF wreaked similar havoc on many other Japanese cities prior, it just took more aircraft to do so with conventional incendiaries. Nuclear weapons were the load perhaps but the fulcrum upon which the world tipped was long-range, accurate, basically unstoppable delivery systems.
ReplyDeleteJim