61 years yesterday, and still no apology.

[Patroklos]

Even worse, the US Army policy of engaging and destroying enemy military forces made this an even more difficult strategy to have been adapted, even if they had realized they could starve Japan out. Trying to get a military to actually embrace an entirely new strategy, especially those leaders who fought "the last war" is astoundingly difficult. Most of the US casualties on Okinawa were caused by this "search and destroy" policy rather than simply taking the necessary airfields and setting up a defensive perimeter accross the island, keeping all the Japanese light artillery out of range of the airfields. Literally, the generals could not conceive of this idea.

The US stategy was correct, your idea is niave. Especially thinking we could operate air bases there with impunity with half the island occupied by the enemy.

[Mr. Harley]

Patoklos (how are you doing?). Actually, I've studied the campaign and have several texts on it. Given the location of the airfields the US needed, and the fact that the Japanese were primarily equipped with light artillery - i.e. infranty guns (very short ranged howitzers) and mortars, and had no resupply capability at all, it was a very viable strategy.

The weapons are short ranged, and the US casualties from their few remaining medium artillery pieces would have been MUCH lighter than those produced by cleaning out the cave complexes. However, as I've commented before - the US army's policy almost preclued such a strategy.

Interestly the Japanese general - I'd have to get one of my books out, I cannot remember his name off hand - was an individual who could step out of the strategic paradigm of the Imperial Japanese Army. He realized he could not "win", that the best he could do for his country was to make the campaign incredibly expensive for the US, and he did an excellent job at exactly that. So individuals can step out of their stategic paradigm, though I would find it interesting to see how often that is associated with being at the very short end of the stick.

My point if not that as a "what-if" proposition, because it's being unimaginable by the US leadership in the battle precludes that. It is to illustrate the point that if they could not see that option and prevent thousands of US casualties, then they are not going to step outside of the paradigm concerning the invasion of Japan. (Forgive me if I don't answer any more, I just got told "Hi daddy" so I will be signing off ).

[Sikander]

Originally posted by Mr. Harley

....

Even worse, the US Army policy of engaging and destroying enemy military forces made this an even more difficult strategy to have been adapted, even if they had realized they could starve Japan out. Trying to get a military to actually embrace an entirely new strategy, especially those leaders who fought "the last war" is astoundingly difficult. Most of the US casualties on Okinawa were caused by this "search and destroy" policy rather than simply taking the necessary airfields and setting up a defensive perimeter accross the island, keeping all the Japanese light artillery out of range of the airfields. Literally, the generals could not conceive of this idea.....

The problem with this in part is the need to maintain a significant force to cordon off the airfields. With the recent experience of marching across the Pacific and siezing numerous islands the thought of "matching up" Japanese ground forces with American ground forces (which weren't all that numerous in comparison to Japanese until the war in Europe was concluded) instead of destroying them was ridiculous. Such a policy would have been impossible before Okinawa, though there cetainly was no need to seize as many bases as we did.

Okinawa was supposed to be a cakewalk, as there was an embarrasingly large fleet in support as well as a large army landed, against only about 2 Japanese divisions. But the American General Buckner wasn't imaginative, while the Japanese commander's plan and deployment were masterful. Higher command wanted the island cleared pronto because of the pounding the navy was taking from kamikazes (the costliest battle in the history of the U.S. Navy was Okinawa), and because they wanted to refit the ground forces deployed on Okinawa for duty in Japan. All combined it ended up being quite costly for everyone involved.

[atawa]

I doubt the US (Or any country of the former allies) will ever appologise for the warcrimes commited in WWII.

[Kuciwalker]

Originally posted by Mr. Harley
Half-life becomes a factor due to the fact that most short half-life isotopes formed by a nuclear explosion are actually more radioactive. They are emitting charged particles at a very fast rate. However, their effects linger for a shorter time. The long half-life substances will have a longer duration during which they produce radioactive emissions.

Shorter half-life is good because it makes the area habitable again sooner.

[Blaupanzer]

1. The US will not apologize because we are not sorry. We justify the bombs when we feel we must, perhaps with heartfelt honesty. But we decided to limit our own casualties and hasten the end of the war by using the power of the sun we had spent so much time and materiel in harnessing.

2. The Japanese obviously feel that apologies are necessary in order to do business in Asia. I sincerely doubt that many today feel responsible in any way for the actions of their Army in WW II.

3. The West Germans undertook their actions precisely to show that they were not the same Germans who were seen to have precipitated bot WW I and WW II. They did not so much apologize as to try to make up for some of the hardships of that era once they had the wherewithall.

4. The Soviets never apologized to the Poles or the Baltic states, and apparently thought they had done those people a favor by depriving them of liberty, property, and in many cases their lives. Modern Russia clearly does not feel responsible for the wartime or earlier atrocities visited against non-Russians in the Soviet era.

5. The theory that the US knew in advance about Pearl harbor is belied by the equipment deployments and lack of defensive planning evidenced on the day of the attack.

6. The historian Charles Mee makes a very good case in his book, "Potsdam," that part of the thinking behind the bombs being dropped as they were, especially the second one, was directed at the Soviets as a warning not to underestimate our resolve and Truman's cajones. Others have claimed that a plan to drop the bombs off the coast but in plain sight of Japan for demonstration purposes was rejected either as being ineffective or because some policymakers wanted to see for themselves what the effects were. It is well known that the two targets selected (as well as a third city) had been exempted from the fire bombings so that damage assessments would not have to separate earlier damage from that caused by the bomb. (This same reasoning has been applied to Dresden. Some historians claim that that bombing was to be used for comparison purposes -- conventional versus atomic bombings of about the same kilotonage against previously undamaged targets.

7. Few alive today have any personal responsibility for the decisions of WW II. Nonetheless, bombing civilian targets with no real military value is looked down on now. Governments carrying out terroism against civilian populaces is definitely frowned upon. In the era of WW II, such actions were seen as other arrows in the quiver of total war -- not particularly unsavory and used by almost all of the major participants.

[lord of the mark]

"The West Germans undertook their actions precisely to show that they were not the same Germans who were seen to have precipitated bot WW I and WW II. They did not so much apologize as to try to make up for some of the hardships of that era once they had the wherewithall."


The west germans not only apologized, but made holocaust education central, not only for foreign consumption,but in good part because the men and women who led the FRG considered themselves and their regime to be endangered by an Nazi or neo-Nazi revival. Also a few of them were in fact victims of the Nazis.

". The Soviets never apologized to the Poles or the Baltic states, and apparently thought they had done those people a favor by depriving them of liberty, property, and in many cases their lives. Modern Russia clearly does not feel responsible for the wartime or earlier atrocities visited against non-Russians in the Soviet era"


Nor have they apologized to the Ukraine.

[Lonestar]

Originally posted by Patroklos


The US stategy was correct, your idea is niave. Especially thinking we could operate air bases there with impunity with half the island occupied by the enemy.

Okinawa was useful as a staging area for a prospective invasion of Japan, not much more. Enola Gay Managed to toast Hiroshima from Tinian, after all...

[RGBVideo]

uhh wtf

Originally posted by Spec
Discusting imo. These millions of people did not diserve to die. Hiroshima nor Nagazaki.

...trolling or just clueless?

edit: the latter... I should really start reading the whole thread before replying

[NeOmega]

apologize for ending a fight the Japanese started?

never.

It was total war. total war requires every tactic necessary.

[Patroklos]

it should also be noted by those who maintain Japan was on the verge of surrendering anyways, that at no time did Japanese politicians discuss unconditional surrender. So it really doesn't matter.