19 Comments

The leaflets dropped over Tokyo, as well as the bombs were as much an incentive to bring the Japanese military to end the war through surrender, I think.

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Thank you Tara! I learned something new today.

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This part of our history is not new. In some ways I first became aware of American conflicts because of this war which most deeply affected my parents and later I learned how it affected my husband and his family. From that horrific event it is amazing how a good relationship grew between the US and Japan.

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I was able to visit Nagasaki when I was 20 on a USN tour. In 1959, my ship, the USS Ranger CVA-61, was in Yokosuka, Japan (the first super carrier to visit) when the tour was organized by the ship. I spent the entire day riding to Nagasaki and back. We went to the Peace Museum there and saw all of the pictures of before and after the bomb. I'm now 85 and have never what I saw. About 15 years ago my wife and I visited Roswell, NM, and the sites in NM where we developed the bomb.

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It's unfortunate that Nagasaki and Hiroshima learned that War is Hell first hand!

But will the rest of the World heed the warning ⚠️ 🤔 of such Destruction?

Thank you Tara 😊!

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Tsutomu Yamaguchi survived both atomic bombs, and loved to be quite old!

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The Day the Earth Stood Still! That movie may have fostered an idea for use with AI. The all powerful robot Gort, programmed to eliminate waring! Funny how we do not see movies like that and On The Beach anymore. Are we forgetting the horrors of real Nuclear war? Back in My day, everyone knew of a "Ground Zero" near them. It's scary to think of the monsters and bubble heads who have their fingers on the big red buttons.

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What a terrible thing we did to the Japanese people. However, these two terrible bombs probably saved many thousands of American and Japanese lives, as the war would surely have been very protracted otherwise.

The Japanese surrender allowed WW2 to come to an end and for many young people, including my father to come home.

History has a way of repeating itself but, let us hope that nuclear weapons are never used against people, ever again. Thank you Tara.

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Thank you Tara. What an incredible time in history!

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Thank you, Tara.

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Didn't know about the alternate targets and the decision of where to bomb being decided by the weather. Very interesting, thanks.

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I visited Hiroshima once. The pictures don't show the whole damage. I hope no one feels they must drop those types of bombs ever again.

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👍👍👍

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I wonder, would we have the courage to make the hard decisions, like this, today?

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And my recollection, after reading this story, is that these two bombings saved the lives of between 150,000 and 300,000 American servicemen!

Had the United States decided to invade Japan it would have cost the lives of hundreds of thousand American servicemen!

It was a tough decision but Truman made the correct move to end the war!

Thank you, Tara, for this story of peace through strength!

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It is always a good time to remember there would never have been a Hiroshima or a Nagasaki had there had not have been a Pearl Harbor. War is Hell in any case. All wars are started by politicians, fought by soldiers (innocent people), and ended by destruction. A sad state of affairs.

❤️🇺🇸🇺🇸🇺🇸

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