North Korea ...again

[invergowrie arab]

3 hours ago, Sergeant Wilson said:

Oh the big one, with the wee guy with the moustache?

Fooling no one.

Where exactly were you on the night of 8 November 1923?

[invergowrie arab]

4 hours ago, EdgarusQPFC said:

Plenty have said that if the Atom Bombs weren't used the war could have lasted to the new year at the risk of millions of lives. 

The US used the bomb to end a war, NK want one to begin a war

North Korea and South Korea are at war so if they just wipe out Seoul in the morning that will be cool aye?

[pandarilla]

Fooling no one.

Where exactly were you on the night of 8 November 1923?

 

A Munich putsch reference? Bravo sir, bravo.

 

[invergowrie arab]

3 minutes ago, pandarilla said:

 

A Munich putsch reference? Bravo sir, bravo.

 

So you are familiar with the night in question too? It's like a Buenos Aires country club in here.

[pandarilla]

So you are familiar with the night in question too? It's like a Buenos Aires country club in here.

I shot the wee coward - but he got away.

[eez-eh]

5 hours ago, Zetterlund said:

Dropping the nuclear bomb on an uninhabited Japanese island probably would have done the trick tbh.

It took 2 bombs dropped on densely populated areas for them to surrender, so I fail to see how 1 bomb on an uninhabited area would have done the trick.

[FifeArab]

North Korea don't take any shite and don't give a f**k, our goverment might want to toughen up a little.

[EdgarusQPFC]

2 hours ago, invergowrie arab said:

North Korea and South Korea are at war so if they just wipe out Seoul in the morning that will be cool aye?

Where did I say that? 

[Sergeant Wilson]

5 hours ago, eez-eh said:

It took 2 bombs dropped on densely populated areas for them to surrender, so I fail to see how 1 bomb on an uninhabited area would have done the trick.

I read about a bloke who left Hiroshima as the bomb went off...and cycled to Nagasaki.

[Newbornbairn]

A lot of people being very wise in hindsight here. In 1945 the Yanks thought it was just a big bomb. Their invasion plan was to drop between 7 and 15 atomic bombs on the beaches then send the marines in over the same beaches hours later. They didn't expect the Japanese to surrender even after Nagasaki, far less if an unoccupied island had been hit.

They expected it to take two years to conquer Japan and reckoned on up to 800,000 Allied deaths plus three million wounded and ten million Japanese deaths (upper estimates). 

[invergowrie arab]

9 hours ago, EdgarusQPFC said:

Where did I say that? 

You said it was fine to drop nuclear weapons on civilians to end a war.

[EdgarusQPFC]

4 minutes ago, invergowrie arab said:

You said it was fine to drop nuclear weapons on civilians to end a war.

I said in that circumstance it ultimately was the right call. 

[welshbairn]

2 hours ago, NewBornBairn said:

A lot of people being very wise in hindsight here. In 1945 the Yanks thought it was just a big bomb. Their invasion plan was to drop between 7 and 15 atomic bombs on the beaches then send the marines in over the same beaches hours later. They didn't expect the Japanese to surrender even after Nagasaki, far less if an unoccupied island had been hit.

They expected it to take two years to conquer Japan and reckoned on up to 800,000 Allied deaths plus three million wounded and ten million Japanese deaths (upper estimates). 

They would have had to wait a couple of years to invade then, they only had one more nuke near to completion after Nagasaki.

[Savage Henry]

The Fog of War is a great documentary, if only to see how passionately Robert McNamara, generally regarded as something of a hawk, was opposed to the nuclear option.

[Stellaboz]

I said in that circumstance it ultimately was the right call. 

Wow.

[Newbornbairn]

3 minutes ago, welshbairn said:

They would have had to wait a couple of years to invade then, they only had one more nuke near to completion after Nagasaki.

That's the accepted story but (and I know it's Wiki),

 

Quote

Ken Nichols, the District Engineer of the Manhattan Engineer District, wrote that at the beginning of August 1945, "[p]lanning for the invasion of the main Japanese home islands had reached its final stages, and if the landings actually took place, we might supply about fifteen atomic bombs to support the troops."^[71] 

 

Edited April 18, 2017 by NewBornBairn
ETA link

[EdgarusQPFC]

1 minute ago, Stellaboz said:

Wow.

Couple of hundred thousand lives vs Millions of lives. 

Not a easy call 

[Fullerene]

13 hours ago, Mr Waldo said:

I think that's partly true but they broke most of the codes before Midway. Okinawa was the deciding factor. Plus Russia taking and keeping Japanese islands the US had to stop it quickly with less US casualties.

Yes, the Americans cracked the code before Midway but then the Japanese changed the code again.
I think that was a constant game of catch up.

On average, the second world war claim 35,000 lives a day.
Killing 100,000 people in one go obviously sounds horrendous now but not compared to what was happening every day.
Ask almost any American at the time to choose between 1,000 dead Japanese or 1 dead American - and I think you know how they would answer.

The Russians got involved because the Americans ask them to get involved.

Bizarrely, if the Japanese had surrendered a week earlier before the Russians got involved (exactly 3 months after the surrender of Germany) then it is possible that Korea would not have been partitioned and we not have this crisis today.
Purely "what if" I know but interesting.

[Fullerene]

5 hours ago, Sergeant Wilson said:

I read about a bloke who left Hiroshima as the bomb went off...and cycled to Nagasaki.

He got a mention on Q.I.  Stephen Fry described him as the unlucky man alive.  The BBC had to apologize to the Japanese Embassy for that one.

[Fullerene]

I read about a man who was at Hiroshima train station at the time and went downstairs to take a piss. 

Bit of a surprise when he came back up again.